Sourav Ganguly is one of the most successful Indian captains of all time. The talented all-rounder is credited with giving youngsters like MS Dhoni a chance in the big leagues. Ganguly became captain after Tendulkar stepped down from the captaincy role due to health-related reasons. He led the team to a series win over South Africa in his very first attempt at international captaincy in the year of 2000. Let’s take a look at the playing XI when Sourav Ganguly captained India for the first time in ODIs.
Openers: Sourav Ganguly (c), Sachin Tendulkar
India opening pair boasted of two legendary batsmen in Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar. These two batsmen created a right-left combination and were a great opening pair for India. Ganguly scored 31 runs from 28 balls, while Sachin scored 26 runs from 25 balls. However, they couldn’t convert these scores into big ones like their Proteas equivalents.
Shaun Pollock picked off Ganguly when the Indian skipper nicked an edge to Mark Boucher. On the other hand, Sachin succumbed to Nantie Hayward. While both the batsmen didn’t score big, they did their job well. Both of the openers saw off the new ball, and thus gave India a reasonable start.
Middle Order: Rahul Dravid, Sunil Joshi, Mohammad Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja, Robin Singh and Sameer Dighe (wk)
Rahul Dravid and Sunil Joshi followed after Sourav Ganguly and Sachin got out. However, they couldn’t make much of an impact as Dravid got out for 17 and Joshi got out for 13 runs. It was up to the other batsmen to do damage control as India lost wickets quickly.
Mohammad Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja, and Robin Singh steadied the ship. Mohammad Azharuddin scored 42 runs from 51 balls. Ajay Jadeja top-scored for India, and made 92 runs. Robin Singh followed suit and remained not out on 42 runs from 43 balls. Following them, Sameer Dighe came to the crease amid much controversy over his selection in the team. He failed to make an impact as he got out for just 5 runs from 9 balls.
All-rounder: Anil Kumble
Anil Kumble is one of the best all-rounders in Indian history. In addition to being a world-class bowler, Kumble can also bat decently. However, he did not make any significant impact in this match. He didn’t take any wickets and gave away 48 runs from 8 overs. Kumble’s wicketless record resembled the performance of other bowlers.
In the batting department, Kumble didn’t have to do much as India were close to winning when he came to the crease. He remained not out on 7 runs from 5 balls as India won the match by 3 wickets.
Bowlers: Ajit Agarkar and Thirunavukkarasu Kumaran
India only fielded two proper bowlers other than Anil Kumble in the playing XI when Sourav Ganguly captained the team for the first time. Ajit Agarkar gave away 55 runs from just 7 overs, with an economy rating of 7.86. The right-handed medium-fast bowler couldn’t do anything to the South African batsmen. On the other hand, Kumaran proved to be one of the more expensive bowlers, leaking 41 runs from 5 overs.
The South African batsmen were in great form as India could manage to take only 3 wickets in the first innings. Gary Kirsten and Herschelle Gibbs scored centuries for South Africa and boosted them to a total of 301. The only wicket-takers were Sunil Joshi and Rahul Dravid, who managed to pick 1 and 2 wickets respectively.
