Sourav Ganguly saved Rahul Dravid’s ODI career by going against BCCI selectors: ‘It could have finished him’
Sourav Ganguly’s latest comments on Rahul Dravid offer more than a nostalgic anecdote. They reopened one of the most consequential tactical decisions in Indian cricket, a move that helped preserve Dravid’s ODI career while reshaping the team structure ahead of the 2003 World Cup. Sourav Ganguly spoke about his decision to use Rahul Dravid as a wicketkeeper in ODIs. (PTI, X images) Speaking on Raj Shamani’s podcast, Ganguly reflected on his leadership philosophy of publicly backing players while privately addressing hard truths. The example he chose was Dravid. “There was a phase when Rahul Dravid was getting picked in ODIs. But people used to say his strike rate was not good enough. Selectors would say maybe someone else needed to be picked. But I did not leave him, because if I had left him, it could have finished him,” Ganguly said. That recollection points directly to the early 2000s, when Dravid’s place in India’s ODI side was under genuine scrutiny. By then, Dravid was already one of India’s most respected batters, but ODI cricket was …
