Long live the Dada

It was a moment that left me a wee speechless, home after a decently long day at work, the news channels had something of a shock in store for me . Saurav Ganguly the Prince of Kolkatta, the former captain of the Indian cricket team and the undisputed king of the offside had announced his retirement.

Even though Tendulkar takes precedence over every other cricketer in the world for me, Ganguly’s decision to retire left me teary eyed.

I do remember when he made is debut in Jan 1992, I was a wee kid, it was a cold morning and I was up against the tele watching and wondering who this idiot was who couldn’t face up the Windies. Back then I was glad he was dropped for the upcoming 1992 world cup and replaced by Vinod Kambli.

The following years were spent coming across his name in the newspapers every now and then ( whenever he scored a century for his local team Bengal ) but it was in the summer of 1996 that I was shocked to read that he was selected to play for India against the English in their very own backyards.

June 1996, and Navjot Singh Sidhu the mad surd of the Indian team had a fight with Azhar the then captain of the Indian team and returned home after the first test which gave Ganguly a chance to play and what followed was brilliance in the making.
Runs flowed like a raging river, Ganguly was suddenly the golden boy of Indian cricket, destroying the Pakis in 1997, killing the Lankans in 1999 at Taunton.

Which I reckon was his best ever one day innings of 183, I was in Hyderabad that day attending the Spic Macay convention and I missed watching that match live but what I heard left me awestruck of his skill. 11 huge sixes all of them landing in the river outside the stadium., sheer brilliance!!!

But then again no one is perfect and every professional has had his bad day, and so did Ganguly, his fights with that bastard Chappell ( I hope he gets hit by a Ganguly shot sitting on the sidelines and dies), his sitting out of the Nagpur test in 2004 and the list is long.

But all I can hope for is that Dada goes out on a winning note after scoring lots of runs in the forthcoming 4 test series against the Aussies and may he be always remembered as the man that did what no one else could to Indian cricket, MAKE them STAND UP AND FIGHT !!!!