I L S G ( I Love Saurav Ganguly)

I am not first person to write about Ganguly and certainly not last. At the same time, I am not in majority when I say that I love Ganguly but I won’t be in the minority either. Strange as it may sound but I believe that Ganugly saga is a test of Indian mentality, questioning their abhorrence towards brashness, aggressiveness and their timidity. It will show who do we, as Indians, want to be in the future?

Love him or hate him, one has to agree that Ganguly was a great one-day player and certainly a great captain. His record in one-days is unbeatable and his commitment towards his team is unquestionable. I am kind of biased towards lefty batsmen. That is why I like Lara more than Tendulkar and for me the joy of watching Ganguly rampaging through oppositions bowling line-up is incomparable.

May be I am reading too much between the lines but the brashness, arrogance and aggressiveness of Ganguly certainly mirrors the youth spirit. His naked shirt waving stint in England, best possible answer to the country that whines like a new born baby when then come to India. His ‘waiting’ tactics against Steve Waugh and Co. is a best possible to Australians who sledge against us because they feel being Australians makes them superior to us. Such examples are numerous and his captaincy record certainly proves that this arrogance backed with professionalism lead India to dizzying heights, comparable to 1983 Indian team. For me the best part of his captainship was his unwavering support to his team mates. If it were not Ganguly then Mr. Dravid was well on his way out in 2000. Same thing applies to Harbhajan Singh too. Because of Ganguly, we have such a array of young talent in the team. He bought and nurtured players like Yuvraj Singh, Virendra Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Mahendra Dhoni, Irfan Pathan and the list just goes on. When they came to team they felt that someone is looking out for them and ready to support them come high and low. Such camaraderie and unity rare in India team in recent past certainly helped team in winning against everyone and virtually everywhere.

But, Ganugly is not related to Cricket only. Cricket is the biggest sport in India and though, national game of India is Hockey, the sheer number of Cricket players in domestic circuit are probably more than Hockey fans. So, captain of Indian Cricket team is more than the leader of 11 gentleman playing on the field, he is more than just a good cricketer, he is more of leading Indian youth aspiration. He has to win every time because he is leading Indian pride. Indian youth carries emotions on their wrist. They are talking about world domination. And even though China is giving stiff competition and the ‘colossus’ US is still very much on the stage, the amazing success of IT sector seems to be cementing the belief that 21st century belongs to India. But, this confidence is completely absent in Indian political class as they are too busy in filling their bank accounts and perhaps, saving their ass. So, whether one likes cricket or not, it is the most gentlemanly way for Indian youth to express themselves and perhaps, get the feeling of superiority.

I don’t want to imply that Ganguly was unblemished. I don’t want to say that he should be in the team if he was performing badly. But the treatment given to him when he was still successful in his captaincy is certainly not a good precedence of treating our heroes. We need heroes. We need honest, hard working and perhaps, a bit cocky people to lead us. We definitely need integrity and talent but not the timidity of Dravid. Dravid is certainly a great player and my prove to be good captain in the future too but he seems to be carry colonial burden and as Gavaskar said earlier, as long as we carry this colonial burden we won’t be winners.

P.S. "What had upset Ganguly most was Chappell's comments in the interview given to the newspaper that the Kolkata stalwart wanted to cling on to the India captaincy for financial reasons."