The Prince Of Calcutta

 Champions aren’t born overnight. Hard-work, dedication, self-belief and an unwavering commitment to hard-work makes them the champions we end up seeing, but there’s one other quality to them. Genuine champions carry people along with them, not everyone plays at that level but they carry people along with them on a path to success and take them to heights that they themselves never thought could be achieved. So, today we look into a person who inspired others and in doing so became one of the greats of the game. I’m talking about none other than Sourav Ganguly, the man who played such a pivot role at a crucial time for India. 

I think what Ganguly achieved as a player and a captain are without  a doubt quiet sufficient to give him the entry to the Elite Club, but his greatness lie elsewhere, there was a situation in Indian cricket when it was falling apart, there was all that match fixing scandal, players were getting banned, they didn’t know whom to trust neither did the fans, in short people were loosing their trust and in such a situation a 26-27 year old took on the reigns of Indian Cricket and I liked the fact that the very first press conference he attended as the Indian Captain, he addressed the issue head on. He said no matter the circumstances India will play ‘Fair’. It was imperative at that point that the Indian Cricket team protected Indian Cricket and the brand of cricket India gifted over the course of the next 4-5 years brought the fans back in a way made them pilgrims of Indian Cricket once again. This was to me the greatest contribution of Sourav Ganguly to Indian cricket. There was a time in 1992 when there was a young boy lost in Brisbane, he could be seen alone in the corridors of the hotels, having a terrible run of luck he didn’t know if he belonged there or not and I think this had a huge impact on Sourav Ganguly’s game as a captain. Whether it was Virender Sehwag, converting him to an opener, or giving the cushion of 10-15 games to Yuvraj Singh, be it Harbhajan Singh who came back strongly in the 2001 series after the woes of ’98 or be it Zaheer Khan, giving him a match or two after his horrendous Nairobi game, you see all the young talents he nurtured went onto become unquestionable greats of the game. No wonder why the youngsters coming in were often found to have tremendous close bondings with their ‘Dada’.  This ability to protect raw talent and carrying them to the heights that Ganguly did is very rare and I think India should be grateful to Ganguly for that. People will say that Calcutta 2001 , Chennai 2001 India beating Australia and thus ending their winning streak will go down as the highpoint of Sourav Ganguly’s captainship, but I believe there was more highpoint in Ganguly’s career and that India played the best cricket overseas under Ganguly, be it 2002 series in England which India drew, then they went to Australia in 2003-2004 and drew a series on Australian turf and finally in Pakistan, a series that India won. India were now starting to win overseas, win more consistently. I remember that Brisbane test match in 2003 Australia India were 120 odd for 4 maybe everyone was like ohh here we go again, India’s woes continue, but there was Sourav Ganguly who scored a swashbuckling 100 and snatched an escape from the jaws of defeat of course there was the Dravid double hundred in Adelaide, Sehwag’s boxing day exploits, Laxman and Tendulkar’s heroics at Sydney but all of it started with Ganguly’s 144. When you look back at all the great innings that Sourav Ganguly played, you’ll remember this was because this century provided India the cushion before locking horns and going toe to toe against the best side of the world. 

Then of course the Chappel saga happened. From being the captain of the side Sourav Ganguly suddenly found himself having to struggle even to be a part of the side, of the team whose seeds had been sowed by Ganguly himself. This was the test of his character, from playing in jam packed stadiums like the Lords, the Eden  Garden’s, the MCG Ganguly suddenly found himself playing in Maidan or small grounds in Silliguri, away from the crowd away from all the limelight he had got. Sourav Ganguly finally came back but not because he was Sourav Ganguly. No. But because he went through the grind again, it rekindled the drive in him once again. Like it might happen with some players that when you have had the limelight for such an extended period, you start taking things for granted I don’t know if that happened with Ganguly, but when he came back in South Africa, you could see there was something else about him, he top scored in that South Africa series, and rightfully so did Tendulkar say to him, “In all these years of playing with you I’ve not seen you bat better than this in Test Cricket.” He was all guns blazing against Australia and Pakistan in the home series. And thus he finished not with a whimper somewhere in Harare or Bulawayo but a majestic career that started with a test hundred at Lords came to a fitting end in Nagpur against Australia in a test match which India won by 172 runs but more than that a test match in which Ganguly scored a 85 in the first innings and that 85 was one of the most fluent 85s you’ll ever see. I’ll remember Sourav Ganguly for many things for the glamorous shots through the off side, the character he brought to the game but more than anything else the way he protected the youngsters and carried them forward. So there you are, this brings us to the close of this episode. With over 18000+ runs Ganguly was a ‘champion’ in true sense of the word. I hope you enjoyed the blog. I’ll keep bringing more such blogs till then it’s me Arka Bhattacharya signing off.