Analysis

Ganguly's short-ball woes

Over the last four years, Sourav Ganguly has been thoroughly exposed by short-pitched bowling

S Rajesh
S Rajesh
05-Sep-2005
Over the last few years, fast bowlers around the world have worked out a simple plan to dismiss Sourav Ganguly: pitch it short, attack his body, make him hook or pull, and then watch as he either defends clumsily or attempts an ungainly hoick and gets himself out. The idea isn't terribly original, but it has worked so often that Ganguly's weakness against short deliveries has become an open secret among the fast-bowling fraternity. Ganguly has often tried to defend himself on that charge by arguing that it doesn't matter how a batsman looks while playing a stroke; what counts is the number of runs he scores and the number of times he's dismissed. Well, if that is Ganguly's defence, then he will be pretty disappointed with the numbers below.
In all one-day internationals since September 2001 (excluding the matches in the ongoing Videocon Cup tri-series), Ganguly's stats against the short balls present a pretty dismal picture - 143 runs from 128 balls with 12 dismissals at an average of less than 12. Among the Indian top-order batsmen, his stats are easily the worst.
Indian batsmen v short ball
Batsman Runs (Balls) Dismissals Average
Rahul Dravid 143 (100) 4 35.75
Virender Sehwag 219 (134) 7 31.29
Mohammad Kaif 60 (56) 2 30.00
Yuvraj Singh 79 (51) 4 19.75
Sourav Ganguly 143 (128) 12 11.92
Ganguly is clearly ill at ease when playing the short stuff, but what makes his case even worse is his insistence on playing the hook or pull, strokes which are clearly low percentage for him. Ganguly's overall runs per dismissal when playing the hook or pull is 25.33 (304 runs, 12 outs), but most of those runs have come off back-of-a-length deliveries. When bowlers have dug it in short, Ganguly has been all at sea while attempting those strokes, lasting less than five balls per dismissal.
Ganguly - Pull/ hook v short ball
Runs (Balls) Dismissals Average Balls per dismissal
96 (44) 9 10.67 4.89
Ganguly's in-control factor - the number of times he has middled his stroke or left the ball alone - against the short deliveries is only 68.75% (88 out of 128), further indication of his discomfort against the short stuff. And with Shane Bond in the opposition line-up tomorrow, Ganguly can expect another severe examination in the Videocon Cup final.

S Rajesh is assistant editor of Cricinfo. For the stats, he was assisted by Arun Gopalakrishnan in Cricinfo's Chennai office.