Many key players in India's 2011 World Cup-winning squad were groomed by Sourav Ganguly, says Manoj Tiwary

Former IPL winner Manoj Tiwary spoke about the role that the current BCCI President Sourav Ganguly played in the Indian cricket team's 2011 World Cup win. In this regard, Tiwary said that a majority of the players in that team blossomed under Ganguly's captaincy as 'Dada' laid the foundation of a champion squad.

In an exclusive chat with Indranil Basu on Sportskeeda Cricket's Facebook page, Manoj Tiwary delved on a range of topics. He spoke about India's historic World Cup win in 2011 where the India became the first host nation to win the Cricket World Cup on home soil.

Sourav Ganguly played a significant role in developing the core of India's 2011 World Cup team: Manoj Tiwary

#OnThisDay 2011 India Win World Cup 🏆 Virender Sehwag Paji Dream Come True 🥇 pic.twitter.com/phIl92WyKg

— R A M E $ H (@sehwag_team) April 2, 2020

MS Dhoni led the Indian cricket team to their second ICC World Cup win in 2011, in the process ending a 28-year title drought in the competition. That squad featured some legendary names like Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh and Gautam Gambhir among others.

Manoj Tiwary opined that Sourav Ganguly played a significant role in building the core of that team by backing the said players during their early days. Speaking about Ganguly's contribution in the Indian cricket team's triumph in 2011, Tiwary said:

"Sourav Ganguly has played a big part in building that team over a period of time. If you go deeply and see, the players who performed well when we won the World Cup in 2011, all the players started when Sourav Ganguly was leading the country."

"He gave so much of security to youngsters at that point of time, whether it be Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra or Gautam Gambhir. All that experience worked for us in 2011 under the brilliant captaincy of Dhoni," Tiwari concluded.

Tiwary heaped praise on Sourav Ganguly for reviving Indian cricket after the infamous match-fixing scandal in the early 2000s that involved some big names. He signed off by saying that MS Dhoni continued the same job before handed over the team's reins to Virat Kohli.