Some thoughts about Ganguly

[triam]

A Salut to Saurav Chandidas Ganguly - A man among mice. Bon Voyage Saurav, The time has come, for you to part ways with us, it is with tremendous pain and misgivings, that we bid you farewell and wish you the best in your future endeavors, for even the greatest warrior will be defeated by grand father time. As a philosopher once remarked ‘When God measures a man, He puts the tape around the heart instead of the head’, to measure you, we know we should measure your heart and not the number of runs you scored, or your strike rate or your centuries. For too long we fans had been saddled with Captains who were more yes-men than real men, individual geniuses who had no idea what it means to be a leader, men who were constrained by the all pervasive Indian traits such as insecurity, unable to handle the pressure, to talk the talk and then to walk the walk etc. Copious amounts of articles would be written about your textbook cover drive, the disdain you had for spinners and the lofted shots out of the stadium without straining a single muscle in your body and deservedly so. But, we have had batsmen, geniuses, artists with the willow who resemble a Picasso with a cricket bat before you, along with you and after you. No Sir, that’s not why we will remember you, but you will be remembered as a man who rose from the ashes time and again to slay your naysayers; you will be remembered as a leader who broke the shackles and insecurities that your contemporaries had; you will be remembered as the one who was finally able to channelize the talent within the Indian team and produce results out of it; you will be remembered as the leader who inspired the insipid group around you to work collectively; and you will be remembered as the man who recognizes talent and sticks by it through ups and downs. Thinking back to those days, when our premiere fast bowler was considered by one and all as not being aggressive enough, our premiere batsman was considered not to have the mettle to finish off games, our assembly line of youngsters one indistinguishable from another with both their personalities and their accomplishments on the field, our group of selectors with their zonal policies, our abysmal records once we are out of India, we are eternally grateful to you for instilling the ‘chutzpah’ in the youngsters you hand picked, the ‘never say die’ attitude that you instilled in the whole team and most importantly we are grateful for teaching your colleagues and juniors how to show a middle fingered salute to those who deserve it. As Sir Issac Newton once remarked ‘I can see the future because I stand on the shoulders of giants’, future Indian captains would consider you the real giant on whose shoulders they stand. So, allow us to give you an heartfelt thanks, thank you Sir, for the innumerable memories, thank you for your cover drives, thank you for fielding and running idiosyncrasies, thank you for not being perfect and most of all thanks to you for showing that being perceived as a bad boy is not that bad and thanks to you for the legacy that you leave behind through your juniors.

[Dravid]

well said:two_thumbs_up:

[Shane]

. Full Name : Saurav Chandidas Ganguly Style : Left hand top order/opening batsman Right-arm Medium Pace Bowler Teams : India, Bengal, Lancashire Highest ODI Score : 183 vs Sri Lanka Highest Test Score : 173 vs Sri Lanka Best ODI Bowling : 5/16 vs Pakistan Best Test Bowling : 3/28 vs Australia Career Highlights : Century on Test debut vs England at Lord's (1996) . . . There was a time when Saurav Ganguly was a broken man. The year was 1992 and his debut series for India against the mighty Aussies Down Under had been a nightmare. Not because of his indifferent performances on the field (in fact, he hardly ever went out into the middle), but because he had become the universal whipping boy; right from the media to some members of the team management, nobody spared him. There were reports of how he had refused to take drinks out on to the field as twelfth man saying it was beneath his dignity; about how he was aloof and kept to himself and wasn't a team man; about how he had made it to the team because of his father's connections in the corridors of the Indian cricket board. He was promptly sacked from the team on its return that season. Saurav Chandidas Ganguly's seemed a closed chapter forever. Cut to 1996. The venue, Lord's. The opposition, England. A young man, making his test match debut, was batting in 'the zone'. Through the covers, through square, through mid off, boundaries flowed. The only spectators who weren't enjoying the performance were the English fieldsmen. But Saurav Ganguly didn't care. He had a point to prove, he had a reputation to build. The next morning's headlines screamed "Century for Ganguly on debut". The following week it was "Two in two : Century for Saurav in 2nd test". 1992 had been relegated to the history books : here was India's latest batting champion.. .While Saurav-bashers as a breed diminished.considerably after that tour, they didn't disappear altogether. "Can't play through the leg side" or "No footwork" was the common refrain. But for a man who had come back from the brink, this was nothing to contend with. More long hours at the nets and soon leg side deliveries were being deftly dealt with, while the footwork became more decisive. Now there was no one to stop him. But it has been in the last season and a half or so, that Ganguly has taken the world by storm. His hunger for runs has grown manifold and with it his ability to instil fear into the opposition. Along with Sachin Tendulkar he has become part of one of the most destructive and successful opening pairs in world cricket. In early 2000, following Tendulkar's resignation as skipper of the Indian side, the responsibility of leading the Indian side was given to Saurav. He has had mixed results since taking over, but his dynamism and willingness to experiment have stood out. He has also been a frank and forthright captain saying what he feels and standing by what he says ; a quality which has won him plenty of admirers. But Ganguly knows that he has his task cut out and that at every stage the media, public and 'experts' will be baying for his blood. He also knows that a successful tenure could put him into the list of all time national heroes. As he sees it, the move from greatness to immortality is just a step away. If you're looking for a clue to what has helped Sourav Ganguly sustain his spectacular run in Test cricket since his return at the *** end of last year, don't bother looking at his footwork or the flow of his bat. Take, instead, a close look at his eyes while he is batting. They speak of a calmness that borders on serenity, and a combination of composure and resolve. You could see it in his comeback innings in Johannesburg, which fetched him an unbeaten 51, and you could see it through his epic innings in Bangalore that marked a new high in his career. In his bowling, and on the field, we have seen the more familiar Ganguly; excitable, emotional, even fiery. He has appealed cantankerously and celebrated his wickets and catches with child-like gusto. His batting hasn't lacked his natural flair - in fact, he has been batting with greater freedom than he did in the period leading up to his temporary banishment - but the most noticeable feature about his cricket has been his poise. It hasn't left him even after he has occasionally been cornered into an awkward position by a short ball. He has let himself go only once: it was an emotional moment, getting to his first hundred before his adoring home fans. But his celebration after he got to his first double-hundred, a landmark he sought and will cherish, was far more subdued. There was the raising of the arms and the acknowledgment of applause from his team-mates and the crowd. But then there was also a series of little pumps of the fist, and a waving of the helmet. Those were for himself. There was an air of fulfillment, of a man celebrating privately in public. His smile touched a million hearts: his struggle to regain his place, and some would say his honour, have been among the most stirring and uplifting stories in cricket. Let's be done with the numbers first. Incredibly for a man who was given up for dead, 2007 has been his most successful year statistically. Potentially he has three innings left still, and he has already scored 932 runs at 62.13. His most prolific year to date has been 2002, when he managed 945 runs - but it took him 16 Tests back then. Put together, 2005 and 2006 yielded him only 422 runs from 11 Tests at 28.13, and that included a painstaking hundred against a hopeless Zimbabwean bowling attack. The manner of his removal, first from captaincy and then from the team, continues to rankle with his supporters, and surely with him. But it is undeniable that from that low has emerged this high. It was perhaps a bit disingenuous for Greg Chappell to claim credit for Ganguly's revival, but in the cold light of the day, the exile, the sheer indignation of it, did make the revival possible, and ultimately far more poignant. The credit for it must go entirely to Ganguly, for few rational observers would have seen it coming. It wasn't just that the runs had dried up; his skills, his responses, seemed to have deserted him, and he bore the look of a haunted man. He owes his return to a change in the selection committee, but the rest of the story is about a man who simply refused to surrender to what seemed inevitable to most. Much can be said about his improved footwork and the decisiveness of his stroke-making, but in the end, it has been a triumph of spirit, of incredible strength of mind and faith. Ganguly is living out a fairytale at the moment, and nothing he achieves will be a surprise anymore. There are many, me included, who believed Ganguly's time as an international cricketer was over. We owe him an apology and a salute Remarkably, in a batting line-up featuring Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, Ganguly has been India's best batsman since his return. Not merely for consistency and the number of runs scored - during the course of his double-hundred he became India's leading run--getter this year - but for the assuredness of the manner in which he has made them. His half-century in his return Test in Johannesburg, though subdued and a bit laboured, helped India to what ultimately turned out to be a match-winning first-innings total in a low-scoring Test. And in the decisive Test in Cape Town, only he looked fluent and in control in the fateful second innings; his dismissal induced a crawl that proved terminal. In England he had a series of vital contributions, and none better than a 79 on a challenging pitch in the second Test at Trent Bridge. Apart from Zaheer Khan's inspired swing bowling, my warmest memory from that match is of Ganguly's square-driving. Michael Vaughan set an off-side trap, with four men between cover and gully, and Ganguly teased and mocked him by caressing, punching and guiding the ball repeatedly through that cordon: one to the right of point, then one to the left, and then a couple between the two gullies. He was denied a hundred by a wrong decision, and his response to that dismissal told a story. In an earlier time he would have left kicking and stomping; here he did so with an ironic, rueful smile. The protest was registered, but without causing offence. Admittedly his hundreds in the current series have come against feeble opponents. The pitch at Kolkata offered nothing to the bowlers, and Shoaib Akhtar was drained by illness. But at Bangalore he was not so much up against the bowlers as the match situation. He provided the calm cushion for Yuvraj Singh to flow at the other end without ever sacrificing his own strokes. Personally, my favourite Ganguly innings of the series is a small but vital one. It came during the run-chase in the final innings of the first Test. Shoaib had just cleaned up Rahul Dravid with a ripper; India had over a hundred runs to get; and Tendulkar was finding non-existent demons in the pitch. In this banana-skin situation, typical to India, Ganguly, who had fallen cheaply in the first innings, set about cutting down the target nervelessly, with deliciously timed fours against Shoaib, Mohammad Sami, and Danish Kaneria. The toughest challenge lies ahead. Australia will come hard at him, and the pitches will test his skills. But he is living out a fairytale at the moment, and nothing he achieves will be a surprise anymore. There are many, me included, who believed Ganguly's time as an international cricketer was over. We owe him an apology and a salute.