5 Cricketers whose careers were shortened because of Sourav Ganguly

3. Aakash Chopra

Aakash Chopra made his debut against New Zealand back in 2003 under the captaincy of Sourav Ganguly. He got off to a great start as he muscled two back to back half-centuries in the second Test. He showed his calibre to pile runs in adverse conditions as well. The right-handed opener went to Australia where he featured in two hundred opening stand with Virender Sehwag. But a sudden dip in his form with the bat ruled him out of the team.

The interesting fact was that Sourav Ganguly, who returned into the team after recovering from the injury retained middle-order batsman Yuvraj Singh and axed the exciting opener, Aakash Chopra. Later on, he was reintroduced as a replacement for Sachin Tendulkar in the 2004 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. But, on the arrival of the Master Blaster, he was again sent to warm the bench.

It looked like Sourav Ganguly had already made a picture in his mind that he would prefer players like Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag ahead of Chopra. He used the right-handed opener as a replacement for every other player but never handed him with a regular spot in the national side due to which Aakash Chopra’s career was cut short to only 10 games in the longer format.