Chandu Borde revealed why Sachin Tendulkar did not want to continue as captain of the Indian cricket team in early 2000. Since Sachin Tendulkar wanted to concentrate on his batting, Ganguly got the call as the new skipper of the Indian cricket team back then.
Tendulkar wanted to concentrate on batting
In early 2000 after returning from a poor tour of Australia Sachin Tendulkar wanted to step down from the captaincy role. Former BCCI chairman of selectors Chandu Borde said to Sportskeeda, “See, if you remember, Sachin, we had sent him as a captain to Australia, and he led the side there, but when he came back, he didn’t want to continue. He said, ‘No, I want to concentrate on my batting.’ Therefore, I tried to convince him to lead the side for a long time because we were on the lookout for a new captain, a new generation.”
Ganguly takes the team forward
Despite a promising beginning as the captain of team India Tendulkar who was the 26th Test captain of Indian cricket, failed to continue with the same momentum. The numbers were against him as he led India with 25 Tests to win just four of them. In ODIs, he led the side in 73 fixtures to win only 23 out of them. Tendulkar hence wanted to work on his batting more and the managed looked up to Sourav Ganguly to take the team forward.
“But he said, ‘I want to concentrate on my batting because I could not get the performance that I wanted to put in for the team.’ And this is what happened,” Borde added. “So, in fact, some of my colleagues were annoyed with me. They said, ‘Why are you insisting him to continue all the time!’ I said we are looking forward to the future, but then in the end we had selected Ganguly.”
