The Warrior of Kolkata

Warrior of Kolkata ? Some people may find it blasphemous. And for good reasons. Intellectuals, romantics, Bangalis are (in)famous for their indolent, accommodating, risk-free way of living; traits which you usually do not associate with a warrior-like person. The "City of Palaces" has its very own prince, the "Prince of Kolkata", Sourav Ganguly, the very person whom I intend to refer to as the warrior of Kolkata. It is indeed an enigma, therefore, that the belligerent former captain of the Indian cricket team has his roots here, in Kolkata.

Ganguly, popularly nicknamed "Dada" (it would mean "elder-brother" in Bangla) burst onto the international cricketing arena making his Test debut against England at the prestigious Lord's cricket ground in 1996. Two test matches and two centuries later, he'd cemented his place in the Indian cricket squad and hasn't looked back ever since. However, Ganguly had already made his international debut in a one day international (ODI) against West Indies way back in 1992, but that is a chapter mired with controversy that all Dada fans and probably the man himself would like to forget. Cut to 2008, Ganguly is in the twilight of his career with one or atmost two years of cricket left in him. He's certainly not fit for the twenty-20 version, not at his age, and has already been unceremoniously sacked from the one-day side to make way for youngsters. Test match is the only form of cricket that he's playing right now. So the question arises - where would Ganguly's place be in the hall-of-fame of Indian cricket ?

Any sort of analysis of Ganguly's career has to start off with his captaincy. Although he's won many a battle for India with the bat,and he's undoubtedly the best left handed batsman India has ever produced, in this article I intend to focus solely on his legacy as a captain. Ganguly was made captain of the Indian cricket team in the year 2000 after the match-fixing scandal broke out. He captained the side till September 2005 when he was dropped from the one-day side and Rahul Dravid took over the reins. The statistically inclined may sum up Ganguly's captaincy career considering his win-loss ratio and tournament wins. This approach, however, would not provide us with a holistic picture, if any. To critically assess his contribution as captain we have to go beyond dry statistics. Ganguly is, undoubtedly, the greatest ever cricket captain of India. Ok, Kapil's devils won the world cup in 1983( ODI format), (which is, by the way, the only instance of India winning the quadrennial tournament) but Ganguly scores over the 'Haryana Hurricane' due to reasons I'm coming to just in a moment. Not to mention we've had a few very good cricket captains over the years and of course I don't mean to disparage their contributions. MS Dhoni gave us the twenty-20 world cup, but he has miles to go still; and he's not yet our Test-match captain.

Ganguly is aggressive, bold, in-your-face and not afraid to take risks (everything that the average Bangali is not - quite interesting). He wears his heart on his sleeve. On the field he's no-nonsense, improvising, right-on-the-money. Even the Aussies who are the undisputed bullies of the cricketing world, often found Ganguly's bellicose attitude too-hot-to-handle; because Ganguly was not afraid to pay back in their own coin. He had the audacity to make Steve Waugh wait at the toss, and thus get under the skin of the ice-cool person who transformed sledging into an art-form and branded it as 'mental disintegration'. He solely deserves the credit for instilling the killer-instinct in a bunch of hopelessly gentile magnanimous losers. This is perhaps the greatest contribution of Ganguly towards Indian cricket; he forever changed the casual attitude of an average Indian cricketer towards the game. Nowadays Indians play to win the match; they can stand up to any challenge, take bold risks and are not intimidated by the reputation of the opponent. For this reason only Ganguly's reign at the helm is a watershed in the history of Indian cricket. And the results are showing - we reached the final of the 2003 edition of the cricket world cup, won the twenty-20 world cup, and most important of all we are winning test matches abroad in hostile conditions that prevail in countries like Australia and South Africa. This was unthinkable only a decade ago. Although Ganguly was ousted from the post of captaincy three years ago, his good work is still yielding fruits. The players who are presently the pillars of the national squad, guys like Yuvraj, Dhoni, Sehwag, Zaheer, Harbhajan and Pathan, among others, blossomed during Ganguly's tenure as captain. That speaks volumes of the man's foresight. How he, as captain, rallied behind Yuvraj Singh provides a case in point. The gifted southpaw, Yuvraj, was highly inconsistent at the start of his career. That obviously didn't go down too well with the myopic selectors who were hell-bent on dropping him in the name of giving other promising youngsters a chance. But for Ganguly, who was adamant about retaining the youngster, Yuvraj's career may would have met with a premature end. Today we all know what Yuvraj Singh is all about. He had complete faith in his players and backed them to the hilt. Ganguly's tenure as captain, however, had its share of controversies. Which is hardly surprising, considering the chaotic and often mindboggling manner in which the cricketing affairs are conducted in India. In the end , however, what remains is the fact that Ganguly is the best captain we've ever had till date. He's a leader in the true sense of the word. And more importantly, he's the man who forever changed the face of Indian cricket.