'Dada, nothing will happen batting at no. 5’ – Madan Lal's game-changing advice for Sourav Ganguly

Madan Lal, the former Indian cricketer, recently said how he motivated Sourav Ganguly to open for the national team. The veteran, who served as India’s coach between 1996 and 1997, wanted to utilise Ganguly’s potential, keeping in mind the talent the left-hander had. Therefore, he asked the batsman to start opening the batting, a move that turned out to be a crucial one.

Out of his 311 ODIs, Ganguly opened the batting in 242 matches, scoring 9,146 runs at 41.57 with a top score of 183 against Sri Lanka at Taunton in the 199 World Cup. Lal, who was part of India’s World Cup-winning squad in 1983, reckons that Ganguly had all the strokes in his book and like every other batter, even he needed time to get his eyes in.

Sourav Ganguly had all the strokes, says Lal

“We wanted to utilise Dada. I don’t know if he remembers or not. I told him ‘Dada, nothing will happen batting at no. 5. You should directly open’,” Lal was quoted as saying during a Facebook Live session with Sportskeeda.

“Every player has his own style. Ganguly had all the strokes. Every batsman needs some time to settle in. If you play out a few overs with just one-two runs, because you need to get set to the conditions. Even today, batsmen like Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane take some time,” Lal said.

Ganguly has mostly opened with the Sachin Tendulkar in the 50-overs format. In 176 innings together, the duo amassed 8,227 runs at 47.55 with 26 century and 29 fifty-run stands. Lal quipped how the opening pair went on to guide India to victories on several instances.

“So, I told him, he was like ‘okay’. And then he never looked back. Sachin and Sourav’s partnership has been really popular for India – the two won a lot of matches for India. I was a coach at the time. I vaguely remember I might have told him this during the Sri Lanka tour,” he added.

Apart from succeeding as the opener, Ganguly also went on to become one of the most successful skippers in the country. At the age of 47, he is currently the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).