As soon as he joined Team India, his international career also ended, Kenya Cricket hid its mistake.
A few days ago, a news related to an old Indian Test cricketer Dodda Ganesh was widely discussed in the media. It was written in it that Doda was removed just a month after being made the chief of the Kenya team. Acting coach Lameck Onyango, who had stepped down with the arrival of Doda Ganesh, returned to his duties. The first indication of this news was that Doda Ganesh's work was so bad that within a month there was a need to remove him.
The writers of this news did not even think about how an old Indian cricketer, whom today's cricket lovers in India do not know much about, is being introduced? The truth is that Cricket Kenya made a mistake and appointed Doda Ganesh as the coach without fulfilling the conditions of its constitution. The board's decision to make him coach was not accepted. They hid their mistake. The loss is to Kenya – after lagging behind many other associate teams in cricket, it lost another opportunity to put its cricket on the right path. Doda was working hard with the team. Kenya cricket, which was once considered a contender to achieve Test status, is today on the back foot.
Thus, this hasty promotion to become the coach of an international team was not a good experience for Doda Ganesh. However, this cricketer, who has played 4 Tests and 1 ODI International, already realizes that hasty promotion is not of much benefit to his career. Excellent record in the domestic cricket circuit – 2000+ runs and 365 wickets for Karnataka. In 1997, when Sachin Tendulkar was the captain, he came to Team India and has played with legends like Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman. It is written about many players that their talent shone at the wrong time – there were already such players in the team that they did not get the right opportunity to play. This statement is absolutely true for Doda Ganesh. Such a bowler who, despite being the best, had to compete with bowlers like Javagal Srinath, Venkatesh Prasad and Anil Kumble for a place not only in Team India and Karnataka team in the last years of the 1990s. There were good pacers but Srinath and Venkatesh were the first choice and not only Doda but people like Sunil Joshi, David Johnson and Vijay Bhardwaj also faced all this.
Even then, Doda Ganesh shone in whatever opportunity he got, came to the Karnataka team and despite such competition, became a contender to play in the high-profile Team India. In the 1996 Irani Trophy, he took 11 wickets (6-84 + 5-89 ) which also included top wicket takers like Navjot Sidhu and VVS Laxman (twice), immediately put him on the radar of selectors and got a call for the team for the 1997 South Africa tour. Went. Doda got a lot of attention when many big bowlers were present. A mountain of expectations were imposed on him but the truth is that he played international cricket in a hurry without proper grooming. Result- 1 wicket in 43 overs at an average of 165 in 2 tests. In the one ODI played against Zimbabwe, he took 1 wicket in 5 overs.
Despite such mediocre performances, he remained in the team for the next tour of West Indies. The Bridgetown Test became infamous for India not being able to score even 120 runs to win by 4 wickets. When he did not get any wicket in the next Test at Georgetown, he was dropped from Team India in such a way that his name was never discussed again – he never returned. As soon as he joined the team, he was thrown out.
He himself admits that everything was new and he got it very quickly – traveling in a flight for the first time, staying in 5 star hotels which he had never even thought of going to, going straight to South Africa tour – he could not digest all this. . He is constantly facing challenges from new bowlers. Being a poor batsman also had its disadvantages. No one ever told me to pay attention to batting. Retired in 2007. After that, without being in a hurry to enter politics, without proper grooming, he got defeated there also. Came back to cricket and the love for cricket continued. He was the coach of Goa for the 2012 Ranji Trophy and now when he got the offer from Kenya, it was definitely a promotion but one that did not go his way.
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