India's golden age
In Tehelka , Suresh Menon makes the case that India's team of the 2000s represents a golden age for Indian cricket, even more than the 1970s and early 1980s team did
Dustin Silgardo
25-Feb-2013
In Tehelka, Suresh Menon makes the case that India's team of the 2000s represents a golden age for Indian cricket, even more than the 1970s and early 1980s team did. He says what made the team so great is not just the number of away wins or the individual prowess of any of their players, but the fact that there were so many different characters in the team and that they held firm in the face of a match-fixing scandal and other controversies.
India needed a strong captain who would obviously be seen to be above the temptation. In Ganguly, who has not been given sufficient credit for this, they found the man. Even the silver spoon that he was born with was made of gold, so there was no excessive greed or need as in the case of some colleagues. The strong team he built — Harbhajan Singh and Sehwag completed the picture — was seen to be above suspicion. Had the Indian public turned its back on the game after Azharuddin admitted that he had used his supple wrists not just for scoring runs but for counting his ill-gotten wealth too, Indian cricket might not have recovered.
Dustin Silgardo is a former sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo