Sourav- End of an era!

I don’t know when I started adoring Sourav Ganguly. I don’t even recall the first time I watched Ganguly the batsman or for that matter Ganguly the captain. My efforts to dig deeper into time only take me back to that wild shirt-swinging moment on the lords balcony and a childlike Sourav happily dancing bare-chested moments after Kaif and Yuvraj had given India an unforgettable Natwest series. It is probably one of those innumerable Ganguly moments that would stay with me and his countless fans for the years to come.
If we were to conduct a snap poll on what Indians thought about Ganguly I think we would get a 50:50 love-hate response. The often repeated and overused phrase ‘You might love him or hate him, but you can’t ignore him’ fits the bill perfectly for Dada.
Sourav the captain announced himself on the scene just after the match-fixing saga and Azhar’s exit, probably one of the most trying periods Indian cricket ever went through. He not only pulled the lads together but also brought to the team an aggressive, no-fear attitude that was badly needed to sustain and perform in that time. It was his sheer luck that he got the services of a tactically brilliant yet extremely low-profile coach in John Wright. It must be remembered here that the Wright-Ganguly pair famously gave India some of her most spectacular victories on the cricket ground.
It is always fascinating to know what a coach thinks of his captain and Wrights latest book ‘Indian Summers’ has a lot to tell about Ganguly. While the coach says that he and Ganguly probably ended up spending as much time in the match referee’s cabin as no other captain-coach duo in the history of world cricket would have, he also says that it was the prince of Kolkata who gave the youngsters in the team a license to bite and snarl at the opposition, to set a maverick and defiant tone!
I cannot agree more with Wright here and probably this was why Sourav appealed so much to his fans, he brought to the Indian captains plate something which nobody before him could, an ability to look the opposition in the eye. I still remember watching the Indian bowlers (notably Srinath and Prasad) in the 90’s and the way their celebrations used to be subdued. I remember watching Sujith Somasundar (a one-ODI opener) take on Glenn McGrath in Australia and the fear in his eyes. Correct me if I am wrong, but I seldom saw the Indians intimidated by the opposition post 2000, post Sourav became the captain.
The only other guy who comes to my mind when I talk about being ‘fearless’ is the young Tendulkar, the Tendulkar who loved to come down all guns blazing especially on the Aussies. With all due respects to Sachin’s fans and even though he still remains the greatest Indian cricketer ever, that rustic madness was lost somewhere as he grew up. I wouldn’t want to compare the two greats, but I’ll just say that when you talk Tendulkar, you will think of the bat while when you talk Ganguly it will be the captain’s hat.
He never gave a stuff about convention, was never perturbed by what others thought of him, probably never gave a damn about being ‘nice’. Ganguly was always just plain Ganguly, for the good or the ill. Ohh yes, he did irritate many of us by being the ‘Maharajah’ on the field at times, but then he also managed to irritate Steve Waugh, didn’t he?
I guess the impending retirement is also a part of ‘being himself’. I guess he has taken enough from the board and his critics and finds it hard to continue. Maybe he agrees with Barrack Obama when the senator says ‘Change is what we need’. Whatever be the reason, its probably the right time to go. It gives the fans immense satisfaction to witness that their hero is ever relaxed and happy to be going. Just one last thing Sourav, hope we get to witness that offside cover drive one last time in Nagpur.