5 Players Sourav Ganguly didn’t back during his captaincy

Sourav Ganguly has a special place in the history of Indian cricket. The Kolkata-born cricketer was one of the most successful and influential captains India has seen. He led the revolution in Indian cricket. It was under Ganguly’s captaincy that India started playing a completely different brand of cricket.

The Kolkata left-hander led India for over five years and had a massive impact. He captained in more than 200 matches across the two formats (Tests and ODIs) and had good success. Ganguly had an aggressive captaincy style and he loved backing his players.

He backed quite a few youngsters and they came out with flying colours as well. The likes of Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Harbhajan Singh and MS Dhoni were the among the few who enjoyed Ganguly’s backing.

However, there were a few who were unlucky to miss out during Ganguly’s reign as captain. Hence, here’s a list of five players who Sourav Ganguly didn’t back during his captaincy period.

1. Wasim Jaffer

Wasim Jaffer may be one of the unluckiest players in Indian cricket history. The right-handed opener has consistently churned out runs in domestic cricket and yet, he was constantly ignored. He made his first-class and List ‘A’ debut for Mumbai back in the 1996-97 season.

After producing some big numbers in Ranji Trophy, Jaffer made his Test debut in 2000 but failed to impress. He was back in 2002 when India toured West Indies and England. However, he blew hot and cold as he scored 215 runs across nine innings (five Test matches).

His inconsistent performances led to his exclusion from the team. Thus, that was the only time Jaffer played under Ganguly. Jaffer did return in 2006 and was a part of the Test side for three years before he was left out again. Hence, India, under Ganguly, tried quite a few openers but never went back to Jaffer despite the latter scoring a lot of runs in domestic cricket.

Thus, Jaffer was reduced to playing domestic cricket day in and day out and he never disappointed. He has scored over 19,000 runs in first-class cricket at an average of 51.19 and is continuing to churn out runs for fun.