India will beat Australia 4-0, says Sourav Ganguly

Few cricket captains around the world have managed to build a team that can dominate the Australians over the past couple of decades in Test cricket. Sourav Ganguly is one of them. Think Kolkata 2001, Adelaide 2003 or Sydney 2003.

In that three-year period, the Ganguly-led Indian side beat the mighty Aussies 2-1 at home in an epic three-match series and held them at their own backyard 1-1 in a four-game sojourn.

Thus, when the former India captain predicts about India's four-match series against Australia beginning from February 23 in Pune, one can't help but go with his gut.

"I had predicted before the England series that it will be 5-0, but it became 4-0. But, Australia will go the 4-0 way against India," Ganguly said when asked by DNA about the upcoming series.

The Prince of Kolkata's reasons for sticking his neck out and foreseeing a whitewash were intriguing. He reckoned that if Steve Waugh's 'Untouchables' couldn't get over the line in India in 2001 despite having the greatest of players and the greatest of Test-winning runs in world cricket, the current young Aussie group led by Steve Smith stand little chance.

"Australia will find it very hard. It's hard to beat India in India. There could not have been a much stronger team that came to India than the 2001 Australian side. And even they couldn't win it, despite having the likes of Waugh, (Shane) Warne, (Glenn) McGrath, (Jason) Gillespie, (Brett) Lee, they just kept coming one after another. But even they couldn't beat India in India," Ganguly said.

The 44-year-old instilled a new trend in Indian cricket, deciding to give the aggressive Australians a taste of their own medicine. Ganguly wanted his boys to give it back to the Aussies with words off the field, and with runs and wickets on it.

Current captain Virat Kohli is continuing that trend, and Ganguly hoped Kohli's troops shut the chirping Aussies up with their on-field show.

"The only way to answer them is by getting runs and wickets. That Australian team led by Waugh, which is probably the best Australian team that I've seen in the last 50 years, was not just aggressive. They put runs on the board and took wickets as well. You look at the numbers, McGrath had 500 wickets, Warne had 700 wickets. So, it's all about the quality of the side," he said.

Talking of quality, Kohli has plenty of it, both as captain and batsman. And as if his unstoppable flow of runs with the bat this season wasn't enough, the Indian skipper went a level ahead and broke Don Bradman and Rahul Dravid's record of scoring four double centuries in four consecutive Test series against Bangladesh in the ongoing Test.

In awe of the man, Ganguly said it is players like Kohli that keep Indian cricket on the rise despite all the downfalls, the recent being the Supreme Court's clean up act of the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

"Kohli has had a great year. He's hit a big purple patch, and a lot of players go through this. But when I see Virat Kohli playing cricket on the field, you get up from the work table and go and watch. That's what he does to the game. His intensity, his passion is something that is unbelievable. He has succeeded somebody very good in MS Dhoni. He has got a lot of responsibility to take Indian cricket forward.

"And you see the stands. England played the ODI series and T20 series here, and despite whatever is going on outside in Indian cricket, not one seat was empty. That's what people like Virat Kohli can do to the people of the country, and even guys like Yuvraj Singh and Dhoni. It's just remarkable," he said.

Ganguly added that Kohli taking over the reigns in all formats from Dhoni only bodes well for the future of Indian cricket.

"It was only a matter of time. But Dhoni has been remarkable. What Dhoni has done over the years is terrific. It's a cycle of life that somebody has to take over. Every good thing in life will be taken over by someone," he said.

Sourav Ganguly, who is the president of the Cricket Association of Bengal, said the Board of Control for Cricket in India should have been shown more leniency by the Lodha Committee, which resulted in the Supreme Court sacking the board's president Anurag Thakur and secretary Ajay Shirke. "The BCCI has been doing a lot of good things for the game for a long time, and that's the reason why cricket is so healthy in India. Indian cricket has only progressed with time. So, they should've seen all these things with a bit more leniency," Ganguly said. He added that the changes will have no impact no the upcoming Indian Premier League. "It will have no affect. The auctions are on February 20. So, the action will be on. As I've said, no seat is empty when India play anywhere in the country, and it will remain that way."