Rahul Dravid Talks on Sourav Ganguly

Do you and Sourav Ganguly keep in touch these days?

Yes we do… we do a little bit.

How would you define Sourav the batsman and Sourav the skipper?

He is a great batsman and his record speaks for itself. I don’t have to define him. He has a great Test and ODI record.

You had famously said he was next to god on the off side…

Yes, I had but I didn’t know it would become a tag. I was actually so impressed by his off-side play in the early days. It was absurd to watch him play on the off side. But to be fair to Sourav, he improved the other aspects of his game. That’s why he went on to play for so long.

And Sourav the captain?

He was a good captain. He was very passionate about wanting to win the game and do well and wanting to build a good cricket team. And the team responded well to that.

I think Sourav will be the first one to recognise that he had a good group of senior players who would help him along. We had a good group which worked together and took Indian cricket forward.

How different was it to come to Calcutta as the Bangalore skipper/player and play against Sourav’s KKR?

I don’t think it was different. While representing Karnataka, I had played against Sourav. At the end of the day, you know that the crowd will root for the home team. The same crowd that cheers for you when you are playing for India can cheer for the other team when you are playing in the IPL. It happens everywhere.