Sourav Ganguly fired Bengal’s imagination. He was a talisman the state had waited too long for
Soumya Bhattacharya10-Nov-2008
For all Bengal: in Ganguly came the answer to years of prayer for a hometownboy who had made good © AFP
I am writing this in the early-morning Sunday quiet of my Mumbai flat, aneye on the clock, my nerves tingling a bit, the sense of keyed-upanticipation that all addicts know flowing through my system as I wait forthe fourth day’s play in Nagpur to begin.I am relishing the wait; the hours leading up to the first ball are anexcruciatingly slow, gorgeously pleasurable wind-up. Thank heavens for Testcricket – : play gets underway as early as 9.30am.It’s a big day in a big game in a big series. But hang on. Isn’t theresomething else too? Yes, at some point later today, Sourav Ganguly is likelyto come out to bat for the last time in his international career.I have just returned from Kolkata, my – and Ganguly’s – hometown, and thepublic discourse over there in clubs, bars and street corners (sorry, thatmay not be a fabulously representative sample, but those are the places Itend to hang out at when I go to Kolkata on my annual visit) was dominated bythe former captain and his decision to quit. Was he pushed? hehave quit? Couldn’t he have played for a little while longer? Oh, Dada!Hell, the largest-selling Bengali daily put Ganguly in as part of the headline theday Sachin Tendulkar got his 40th Test hundred. (Ganguly was 27 not out atstumps.)You wouldn’t think it talking to the man on the street and reading theBengali papers but there is among many members of the educated elite inKolkata a tendency to go against the grain and profess no extra love forGanguly. The way it works is to specifically say that the massesillogically, irrationally support Ganguly. In a way, this stands toreason: Kolkata is a city of self-conscious irony; it is bashfullyapologetic about itself and is suffused with a severe abhorrence ofself-congratulation in certain circles.Several of my friends resort to this sort of thing. I never have. I havealways been an admirer of Ganguly’s. And I insist that my admiration hasnothing to do with being parochial. Nor do I think I need to go against thegrain in this respect to exhibit my distinctiveness from the masses.But I have been thinking about it this morning. And, you know, I’ve beenasking myself if it is at all possible to entirely divorce parochialism ofsome form or the other from support. Isn’t all support a sort of tribalism?Isn’t that what it’s all ? I mean, I am a big fan of RogerFederer and John McEnroe and Diego Maradona, but with cricket, a sportin which we are actually good? You tell me.Well, Bengal’s fanaticism about Ganguly to do with parochialism. I amnot sure if this is something to be bashfully apologetic about. Sport, yousee, as Nick Hornby writes in , is partof popular culture, however much some of us try to deny it sometimes. AndBengal has been traditionally big on culture – and tremendously proud of it.If you don’t have much else to show – like, say, top industrialists, or alot of money, what else can you do? Culture is your badge of privilege, of genuine distinction.Now we always had people who would talk about cricket; who would pridethemselves on forming the most literate, intelligent cricket crowd in India(a patent lie. I think it went by a name in the popular press: congnoscenti); who would say that the Eden Gardens had the most atmosphere (a nebulous assertion because one isn’t quite certain what “atmosphere” might really, objectively, mean); and who would talk about Kolkata’s culture of following cricket in a, well, cultured way.We had everything, you see. The trouble was, there was no one to follow. Wedidn’t have the players. I mean, okay, Pankaj Roy was from Bengal, but tofind people who could recall him in his pomp – well, let’s just say you won’tfind too many of them hanging around at street corners or clubs or bars.Ganguly fired Bengal’s imagination because he was the talisman Bengal hadbeen looking for for decades; he gave us someone to specifically root for.Every state had its players in the national team. Where were Bengal’s?Here was a state that had historically produced nearly no Test players ofany stature. In Ganguly came the answer to years of prayer for a hometownboy who had made good. And how good he made. But that’s not quite why I admire Ganguly. Or at least that is what I .All this I have figured out, keyed up, in the early-morning, Sunday quiet of my Mumbai flat, waiting for play to begin.I think I am a huge Ganguly fan because of the way he has changed Indian cricket. I have written about this before, but it bears repeating. (Fans can’t ever have too much of repetition.)Becoming captain in November 2000, he forged on the anvil of hisspectacular, stare-you-in-the-eye-and-not-blink, tough, provocativeleadership a side that went from being crumbling-pitch bullies in India tothe team that has beaten the (still) world champions, Australia, on moreoccasions than any other side in this century; the side that has won aroundthe world; the side that has played with audacity and impunity and courageand guts and beauty.Indian captains were supposed to be polite, stoic, decent, notoverly, demonstrably ambitious, middle class in sensibility if notlineage. Ganguly changed all that.He was the fulcrum around which the contemporary game’s premierconfrontation, India versus Australia, was built. Indian cricket was alwaysabout silk, about splitting cover and extra cover with neither fieldermoving. It took Ganguly to put the steel in it.Bengal’s fanaticism about Ganguly to do with parochialism. I am not sure if this is something to be bashfully apologetic about. Sport, as Nick Hornby writes, is partof popular culture, however much some of us try to deny it sometimes This has been a thrilling decade – why, a thrilling century, I realise as I write this – to be an Indian cricket fan. And we shall be remiss if we don’t acknowledge the extent of Ganguly’s contribution to that fact.It is probably true that his record as India’s most successful captain everhas somewhat obscured and taken the attention away from his achievements asa batsman. His Test average has never fallen below 40. He is India’sfourth-highest Test run-scorer and fourth-highest century-maker. He hasplayed more Tests than all but a handful of players in the history of the game, andhe has, in them, offered us numerous beautiful, gutsy, unforgettableperformances.Ganguly himself is acutely aware of this fact. A couple of days ago he wasquoted as saying (in – where else but? – a Bengali daily) that he has mademore than 2000 runs in the past 22 Tests. He is very conscious of hisstats. And why not? If others aren’t, perhaps not as much as they ought tobe, the man who made the most stirring comeback in contemporary Indiancricket ought to be. It’s not something to be exactly ashamed of, is it? Or bashfully apologetic about, perhaps?But the fact remains that more than Ganguly the batsman, it is Gangulythe captain – the “game changer”, as the marketing blokes like to call it – Ishall remember. And I shall miss him when he is there no more to remind meof how he did what he did.Wish you luck, Sourav. Have a good one, mate – as your favourite opponentswould say – now that it is all over. And thanks for what you gave us.It’s still nearly an hour to go for the start of play.