Ravi Shastri may look like one of the most jovial personalities in the commentary box and off the field, but when it is time for work, he means business. In a recent conversation with Gaurav Kapur during the show Breakfast with Champions, he recalled the tour of Bangladesh in the year 2007 when he joined the Indian team management for the first time and revealed how he taught Sourav Ganguly the importance of time and punctuality. “I take pride in being punctual. It is a great characteristic. In our team, punctuality is prominent. In Chittagong, we were actually supposed to leave at nine, and it got to nine. I said, ‘let’s go.’ The local managers and others said, ‘Dada Nahi Aaya’ (Dada hasn’t come yet). I said, ‘Dada ayega Gadi mein. Chalo.’ (Dada will take the car. Let us leave),” he said. He continued, “After that, whenever we left for practice sessions, Sourav was always 10 minutes before. Punctuality is very significant in a team sport." This was probably a first in Indian cricket when a team manager had left a former team captain for the reason that he was late. It is a fact that Shastri and Ganguly do not share good chemistry. In 2016, when Anil Kumble was chosen as head coach of Indian cricket team over Shastri, he blamed Ganguly, a member of Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC), for him (Shastri) being snubbed. Later, the duo would throw verbal volleys at each other before the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) intervened.
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