‘He’s a fierce competitor’: Russel Arnold recalls ‘banter’ with Sourav Ganguly in 2002 Champions Trophy final
Former India captain Sourav Ganguly, known for being a fierce leader on the pitch, had a flare up with Sri Lankan middle order batsman Russel Arnold at 2002 Champions Trophy final.
The Indian team under Sourav Ganguly’s captaincy took major strides towards becoming one of the best in the business towards the beginning of the 2000s. While Australian remained the team to beat in 50-over cricket, India were slowly developing as a force to reckon with. A testament to this was the 2003 ICC World Cup, which saw India and Australia contest the final of the tournament. In the lead up to the World Cup, Ganguly had led India to the ICC Champions Trophy title in 2002. The trophy was shared by India and Sri Lanka as the final and the reserve match were both halted due to rain. But in both those matches India held the upper hand.

In one of these matches, Ganguly, known for being a fierce leader on the pitch, had a flare up with Sri Lankan middle order batsman Russel Arnold. The incident happened when Arnold after playing a late cut had taken a couple of strides on the main area of the pitch.
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Rahul Dravid, who was wicket-keeping for India, immediately raised a concern about Arnold’s actions. This infuriated Ganguly who walked down to the pitch and gave an earful to Arnold. The Sri Lankan too didn’t hold back and had a few words to say. Eventually umpire David Shepherd had to intervene to cool things down.
Arnold, who has become a leading cricket commentator since hanging his boots, spoke to Indian off spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on his show Reminisce with Ash on Instagram about the incident and said that the matter was overblown and it was all just banter.
“It was the 2002 Champions Trophy, I think. We were playing in Sri Lanka. We were about 200 I think. I remember I had played a delicate late cut and then took 2-3 steps down the wicket.
“Okay, I can be honest now. It’s been 18 years now. I took 2-3 steps down. Everyone does it. Sourav Ganguly came up immediately and made some noise, confronted me.
“Nothing happened. Then Rahul Dravid told me ‘Russ, don’t run on the (danger area) of the pitch’. It was just banter,” Russel Arnold said.
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“When we are playing with Sourav... he is a fierce competitor. He will give as good as he gets. It’s also a bit easy to wind him up. He always has replies. It was good banter. Nothing more than that. It’s all in the game. It was all in the game.
“It was all in good spirits. I really think it was overblown. It was just 3 steps... 3 strides,” the former left-handed batsman said.
