The culture and quality of cricket makes Indian cricket special, believes Sourav Ganguly

With more than a year remaining for the much-awaited World Cup in 2019, the guessing game has already started and Sourav Ganguly, who guided India to the final in 2003 World Cup, has chosen the Men in Blue to be the firm favourites for the tournament.   

India have won the 50-over World Cup twice so far, first in 1983 under the captaincy of Kapil Dev and then in 2011 under the leadership of MS Dhoni. And despite predicting India to be the frontrunner for the highly coveted title, Ganguly has insisted that India are yet to be termed as the ‘best’.  

“I don’t believe in the word ‘best’ as different teams play well under different situations but we have a side which is very strong. We went to 2003 and 2007 World Cups as favourites. In 2011 we won and even now, it’s all because of the culture of Indian cricket and the quality which comes out every time which makes Indian cricket special,” said Ganguly, on the sideline of his book launch in New Delhi.

The hackneyed question of picking the best between Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar was against raised in front of the former Indian skipper and Ganguly rightly pointed out that two different generations cannot be compared.

“We don’t compare generations. Indian cricket is fortunate to see both of them. Every generation has produced champions. When (Sunil) Gavaskar finished, people wondered who would take his place and then Sachin came. Later, Dravid followed Sachin and look, we now have Kohli.”

Ganguly also stated that his life has been known to everyone and hence he wrote the book ‘A Century Is Not Enough’, so that could be useful for the youngsters. 

“I thought there is nothing about me which the country doesn’t know. I felt I should write something which would one day come as a help for young cricketers,” he emphasised.

Explaining what his book was about, Ganguly further added, “The title of my book means that just by scoring runs, one cannot be a champion at the top level. A cricketer has to go through various ups and downs in his life.”