Knew My Time Was up After Watching Dravid and Ganguly Play During 96' Tour: Sanjay Manjrekar

Renowned cricket analyst and commentator, Sanjay Manjrekar, in a recent interview, revealed after witnessing the two stalwarts of Indian cricket, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly, feature in their breakthrough series in England back in 1996, he pretty much knew that his time up playing for India.

Both Dravid and Ganguly made impressive debuts in seaming conditions of England, where other established batsmen in the team found it difficult to cope up.

Ganguly went on to score a century in debut at the hallowed turfs of Lord’s while Dravid missed out on his maiden century on his debut by just four runs.

“On that tour of 1996, when both these guys established themselves, the tour of England, Sourav Ganguly, the way he batted during the warmup games, to begin with before the Test series started. It was the first half of the summer, it was cold in England. The ball was moving around, a lot of us were struggling,” praised Sanjay Manjrekar according to the video released by Quint.

Manjrekar further mentioned Ganguly’s progress in Test Cricket did not come as a surprise as he got selected into the Indian side on the basis of his pure talent and not at the back of huge scores.

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“But not Sourav Ganguly. He had such great mindset and was in great form, he just looked so much at ease than the others. I remember talking to Ajay Jadeja about it and both of us felt that was the tour or the series that would make Sourav Ganguly. People picked him based on his talent and not at the back of heavy scores,” further added the Mumbai batsman.

The modern voice of Indian commentary claimed he found Dravid better than Ganguly while citing out an instance from an Irani Trophy match which he played as captain and Karnataka batsman alongside in his team.

“I was impressed with Rahul Dravid than Sourav Ganguly. The way he played on a difficult pitch to score an eighty against Punjab during an Irani Trophy match, you could see instantly that he had India potential, a guy who was destined to play for India. The way Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly batted in that 1996 series, I pretty much knew my time was up,” concluded Manjrekar.

Here’s the entire interview

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