Few said he cant play the rising ball , few said his attitude is like a Maharaja , but whatever , the fact that he entertained cricket fans for more than a decade and a half is undeniable. Yes the one and only
Saurav Ganguly. A natural right hander , he was forced to switch to left handed batting just because he used his brother's kit(who is a left hander) and who boy , what a transformation it was. His batting can be described as poetry in motion, very similar to that of a bishen bedi bowling left arm spin or a jonty rhodes fielding. Put aside everything else, his most vital contribution to indian cricket was his captaincy. Took over the reins of indian cricket team , when the team was at its ebb and they used to depend on one man batting god Sachin Tendulkar. What he did was plucked a few talented youngsters from the ranji trophy, persisted with them despite their inital failures and built a team capable of beating top notch sides on their day. What stands out is that core of the current team Sehwag,Yuvi,Bhajji,Zak were all groomed by the warrior prince. Their respect for their captain shone when Saurav was dropped from the side and they protested that. Not that Saurav was a Mike Brearly , playing in the side ,merely as a captain. He has made 10,0000 runs in ODI and 8000 odd runs in test cricket. He put too much burden on himself as a captain , that is where Ganguly the batsman got affected. When he was selected to play the england test in 1996 many termed his selection as a quota system and he was doomed to fail. But he silenced his critics with a spell bounding century with his characteristic off side play. How many ever fielders you put in the offside he pierces the gaps with surgical precision. When a man of few words like Rahul Dravid described him as"First there is god, then there is Saurav Ganguly , those words came out of mere admiration for his collegeue. His first five years of batting was smooth , he unleashed his off drives at will , lofted the spinners out of the park with ease and made some useful contributions with his handy medium pace. After that he was figured out. His edges to slips and gully were a common thing. Out of the blue he may play a fantastic innings, like the fighter's innings in 144 in Melbourne ,which made India stand upto Australia. His place in the side was never qeustioned for a few years , as the runs came from the willows of SRT,Yuvi,Viru and Dravid. And he formed a great partnership with John Wright , India's first foreign coach. The ending of his tenure coincided with the downfall of Saurav. He was detrimental in bringing Greg Chappell as the coach , but their association never took off and ended in a bizzare leaked e-mail in Bulawayo in 2005. He was prompty dropped, his deputy Dravid was made the captain. And after his sacking ,he went back to Ranji, scored runs , tightened his technique and made the selectors to draft him back to the side. He came like a man with a mission. Scored hundreds in away pitches in South Africa , dropped shear anchor role to allow the more flamboyant batsmen play their shots and the phoenix has risen from the ashes. From Ganguly the shot maker , he moved into Ganguly the accumulator , a similar transformation made by SRT(after their 30s). And till the day he announced his retirement he scored more runs thatn any other player. His decision to retire during the nagpur test, against Australia was questioned by many ,as runs were flowing freely. But he had made his mind and decided to leave the spot to a budding young batsman.
He taught the team , not to bugged down during hard times and instilled the belief of winning in away tours. Some of his acts like making the great Steve Waugh wait during the toss and Swirling his shirt after the Natwest Trophy Finals are now part of the folklore , that showed the new brand TEAM INDIA. He made his fair share of mistakes , got struck into controversies , but he all showed us what left handed batting is and what it takes to be a great leader. Each and every word in this article is a dedication to the one of the legends of the game from one of his many humble fanatics
