Wasim Jaffer, who represented India in 30 Tests, named the favourite captain he played under.
Former India Test opener Wasim Jaffer named his favourite captain during his time in the national team. Jaffer made his debut under the captaincy of Sachin Tendulkar and went on to play for Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and MS Dhoni.
The most successful period in his career came under the captaincy of Dravid, where he became a mainstay in the Indian opening order for nearly two years. He enjoyed successes at home series and abroad during this time and also registered his highest individual score (212) against West Indies in 2006 under his captaincy. However, Jaffer picked Sourav Ganguly as his favourite captain.
He reasoned that Ganguly used to back his players and gave the opportunity to many young cricketers who went to become key players in the Indian team for many years.
"Sourav Ganguly was the one who made the team after 2000. He had the temperament, backed the players and gave them a longer rope. He made Sehwag open the batting and brought players like Zaheer Khan, Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh," Jaffer said in an interview with CricTracker.
Sourav Ganguly took over the captaincy at a time when Indian cricket was rocked with match-fixing scandal. Sachin Tendulkar had stepped down from captaincy for health reasons, and Ganguly, being his deputy at the time, ascended to the position. (ALSO READ: Buchanan 'wanted to remove Ganguly from captaincy' at KKR: Aakash Chopra)
His captaincy saw the arrival of the aforementioned youngsters and Indian cricket gradually revived from the ugly setbacks at the turn of the century. Under his leadership, India famously ended Australia's winning streak in the longest format of the game and defeated the side 2-1 in the home Test series in 2001.
Jaffer played five Tests under Ganguly captaincy but failed to stand apart. In seven innings under Ganguly, he scored 149 runs with the highest score of 86 against West Indies. His poor form resulted in him being dropped from the side.
However, Jaffer made a strong comeback to the Test XI four years later under Dravid.
