The other Ganguly on Bengal cricket

In 1989-90, after taking Bengal to the Ranji Trophy final, Snehasis Ganguly was dropped from the side. In his place, his brother Saurav Ganguly made his first class debut against Delhi. Missing out the match where Bengal became Ranji Trophy champions after a gap of 51 years, still rankles the elder of the Ganguly brothers. That is why his first motto as a selector is to see that every cricketer gets his due opportunity.

Sitting at his posh office in North Calcutta on Monday, Snehasis said, "that incident still hurts. I am determined to see that such a thing does not happen to a budding cricketer. As a selector, my first job is to see that performance gets its due reward."

Snehasis, who has playing club cricket in Bengal for the last few years, decided to don the role of a selector simply because he wanted to remain associated with the game. "Actually, with my business interests, I will not be finding enough time to play the game. However, I do not want to lose my association with cricket. That is why, when the Cricket Association of Bengal approached me to become a selector, I decided to take up the job. The only other way I could have continued serving the game is through coaching. However, at present, I do not want to be a run of the mill coach. If I seriously decide to coach youngsters, then I will go for a full fledged academy with proper backing from a sponsor. Right now, I have time to devote as a selector. That is why I have taken up the assignment."

The former Bengal and East Zone left-hander, who at one point of time was considered to be more talented than his illustrious brother, also feels that Bengal cricket needs some time to regain its lost glory. "The problem is that we do not have any youngsters coming up. The attitude towards the game and the will to win has disappeared. That is why we have done away with a few of the more famous names in Bengal cricket. But the youngsters have not been doing well. If you look at the performance chart for the last couple of seasons, you will see that only Utpal Chatterjee, Saba Karim, Srikkant Kalyani and Devang Gandhi have been playing well. All these cricketers are quite old. Unless the youngsters come forward with good performances, there is no chance for Bengal."

Ganguly also stated that lack of bowlers was another reason for the poor show put up by the state. "The problem is that no bowlers are coming up. That is why we have kept some under-19 cricketers in the list of probables. I just hope that they succeed."

Ganguly said quite candidly that former skipper 38-year-old Utpal Chatterjee had a communication problem with the rest of the team. This prompted the Bengal selectors to choose Devang Gandhi as the deputy to Saurav Ganguly. "When Saurav will be available, he will lead the side. Otherwise, Gandhi will be the skipper. We had to look towards the future."

Ganguly also made it clear that he was ready to coach the Bengal team only on a temporary basis. "At present the side does not have a coach. So if the CAB asks me to conduct the training session, I can do so, but only for a couple of weeks.'' He also said that the side needed a coach who had the ability to be strict. "When we played, our coach GS Parmar was very strict. One day Arun Lal arrived at the nets two minutes late. Mr. Parmar made him run two extra laps around the Eden Gardens. However, our present coaches are not that strict about maintaining discipline."

Ganguly however, at the moment, does not have any aspirations of becoming a national selector. "I am just concentrating on the job at hand. I want to do something fruitful for the game," he said.