Sourav Ganguly
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Contents |
2004
Musharraf's advice
From: Avijit Ghosh, When Musharraf told Ganguly not to indulge in midnight ‘adventures’ in Pak, February 28, 2018: The Times of India
A phone call from Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf left Sourav Ganguly “mortified” during the historic 2004 tour across the border. “Facing Wasim Akram’s deadly in-cutter was less scary!” writes the former India captain in his forthcoming autobiography, ‘A Century Is Not Enough’.
The backstory of the unlikely call is fascinating. During the tour, the Indian cricket team was lodged in Lahore’s swish Pearl Continental Hotel. Security was at its tightest, almost suffocating. Having wrenched out a thrilling 3-2 victory in the ODI series over the arch rivals, the Indian captain wanted to just escape from the “fortress”.
“Well past midnight I discovered that my friends were making plans to visit the iconic Food Street for kebabs and tandoori dishes. The area is known as Gawalmandi,” says Ganguly in the book co-written with journalist Gautam Bhattacharya.
“I didn’t inform our security officer as I knew he would have stopped me. I had only told our team manager Ratnakar Shetty. I slipped through the backdoor with a cap which covered half my face… I knew it was breaking the rules, but I felt I had to get away from the rifles and tanks,” he writes.
‘President Musharraf was polite, but firm’
To avoid getting recognised, the Indian captain had devised a ploy. “Arey aap Sourav Ganguly ho na?” someone asked excitedly. I said no in a slightly modulated voice. He shook his head and said, ‘I thought as much. Par aap bilkul Sourav jaise dikhte ho.’”
The Kolkata cricketer, who scored 7,212 Test runs (16 centuries) and smashed 11,363 runs (22 tons) in ODIs, goes on to say, “We were about to finish our dinner when someone finally called my bluff. A few yards from where we sat was journalist Rajdeep Sardesai. The moment Rajdeep spotted me, he started shouting, Sourav, Sourav. I knew I was in trouble.”
Soon chaos erupted. “People started coming in from all directions and I got gheraoed-…While I tried to pay the bill and escape, the shopkeeper refused to accept payment. He kept on saying, ‘Bahut achcha. We need someone as aggressive as you to lead Pakistan’.”
There was more adventure in store. “While we were making our way back to the hotel a speeding motorbike chased our car. The biker was asking me to roll down the window. My co-passengers kept telling me not to as they feared he might have a bomb. I, however, did not see any threat and obliged. He stretched out his hand and echoed the shopkeeper in Food Street, ‘I am a big fan of yours. Pakistan needs a leader like you.’ The series loss had hurt the average supporter big time.”
Ganguly arrived at the hotel safely. But the news had reached Musharraf. That’s why he made the phone call. Writes Ganguly, “President Musharraf was polite but firm. He said, ‘Next time you want to go out please inform the security and we will have an entourage with you. But please don’t indulge in adventures’.”
2015: Conflict of interest?
The Times of India, Dec 09 2015
Is Ganguly caught in the conflict net?
With Sanjiv Goenka's consortium bagging the Pune franchise in the IPL auction, questions were raised whether former India captain Sourav Ganguly has got into a conflict of interest situation. Ganguly, a stakeholder in the Indian Spuer League franchise Atletico de Kolkata, is a business partner in the football franchise with Goenka and two other Kolkata-based businessmen Harshavardhan Neotia and Utsav Parekh who form part of the consortium.On the other hand, Ganguly is also a member of the IPL governing council.
The question of how can the business partner of an IPL team owner be a member of the governing council that runs the tournament itself was one that drew the attention of many who attended Tuesday's auction for two new franchises.
“As far as I understand, Sourav Ganguly has no conflict of interest. If he would have been involved with any team (IPL), then it would have been a different case. But I think a lot of people are not understanding what conflict of interest means,“ BCCI president Shashank Manohar said.
After Manohar has come to head BCCI, the board has taken some tough decisions on the conflict of interest issue.For example, national selector Roger Binny had to vacate his chair because his son Stuart was in regular contention for Team India while daughter-inlaw Mayanti was employed with BCCI's official broadcaster Star Sports. In response to questions over Ganguly's role, Manohar said: “Suppose I am a lawyer and I have a client. If that client later at some point gets associated with BCCI, how is it a conflict of interest? It can only be a conflict of interest if someone in his position shows bias. I think this is now being taken to an absurd level.“
Manohar, nevertheless, clarified that this was only his view and if at all there was a complaint over Ganguly's role in more than one capacity, it could always be referred to Justice AP Shah, who was sometime back appointed BCCI ombudsman.
Greg Chappell, loss of captaincy, IPL
February 25, 2018: The Times of India
‘My sacking in 2005 was unthinkable, unacceptable, unforgivable’
Sourav Ganguly’s autobiography, one of the most anticipated books of 2018, is set to hit bookstores. In this excerpt from ‘A Century Is Not Enough’, Dada talks about how the downs in his career shaped him
Back home in 2004 while we were discussing who could succeed John Wright, his name flashed in my mind first. I thought Greg Chappell would be the best person to take us to the number one slot from the challenger’s position. I had conveyed my personal choice to Mr Dalmiya when they were looking for a new Indian coach. A few people advised me against this move. Sunil Gavaskar was one of
them. ‘Sourav, think about it. With him around you might have problems in running the team. His past coaching record is not spectacular, he told me.
Mr Dalmiya also called one morning and asked me to come to his house for an urgent discussion. He shared in confidence that even his brother Ian thought Greg might not be the right choice for India. Well, I decided to ignore all these warnings and follow my instincts. The rest as they say is history. But then that’s life. Some scripts go your way, like my tour of Australia, and some don’t, like the Greg chapter. I conquered the country but not one of its citizens.
FROM MAHARAJ TO OPPRESSED
This (2005) remains the most turbulent chapter of my life. Not only was my captaincy suddenly taken away for no reason but I was also dropped as a player. I feel angry even as I write this. What happened was unthinkable. Unacceptable. Unforgivable.
History hasn’t recorded many instances of a winning captain being dropped so unceremoniously, that too after scoring a hundred in the last Test series. In Indian cricket there are no such parallels and I doubt whether there will ever be. So Mr Gregory Stephen Chappell and the selection committee led by Kiran More have indeed put me in august company.
… One thing that heartened me was that the number of my supporters across the country was rapidly increasing. Look, I was the captain of India for five years. I was one of the stars, a popular face in India. I already had a substantial fan base. But this downhill phase of mine suddenly endeared me to the masses. Even in the media, people who had criticized me routinely turned softer. Suddenly from Maharaj I had joined the ranks of the oppressed.
IN IPL, YOU DO AS YOU ARE TOLD
First year: Captain Second year: Just an ordinary member Third year: Captain As always, I failed to understand how I could be so bad and so good within a period of only twelve months. But then in franchise cricket you only do as you are told.
Our fortunes did not change much in season three. I knew the team was now up for a change and rightly so. Our performance was below par and KKR needed a shaking up. With fresh auctions coming up the management needed to acquire the right kind of players and not repeat the mistakes that were made earlier. I was all for it. But I did not realize that I would not even be retained as a player. Personally I had a great year notwithstanding the dismal team performance. I was the highest scorer for my team having scored 493 runs with an average of 37.58. Sachin had won the Orange Cap with 618 runs and I was fourth in the overall run-getters list. The numbers spoke for themselves, but yet again they were overlooked.
Coming to Shah Rukh, I had interacted a lot with him during my time with KKR. By the third season his involvement was even deeper. The team’s series of poor performances had hurt him deeply. I could understand his plight too. Being such a super successful performer it was difficult to take repeated failures in a product that bore his signature.
I used to be in constant touch with him and in season three more than once took his opinion while deciding upon the final eleven – something I had never done while picking an Indian eleven. But as I said, the IPL was managed and played in a completely different way.
I was later asked by the media what would have happened if the same KKR team had been owned by any other superstar? I replied that non-performance was an issue no one would have tolerated. So I thought the decision to leave me out from captaincy was quite justified. But how could they leave me out from the side as a batsman? To me, that was unjustified.
I was also asked many times if someone had poisoned Shah Rukh’s ears against me. My answer has been the same, I don’t think so. There was a theory doing the rounds that my chest-thumping in a particular match against Deccan Chargers at Eden Gardens had angered the KKR management.
Now to give you the background. I usually do not watch TV or read the paper on the day of the match. But that day before leaving for the ground, I had switched on the TV. What I saw was a banner headline, ‘Time for Ganguly to Retire’. Some media friends felt it was politically designed. I still don’t know who the mastermind was.
That day I scored 88 runs and we won the match against Deccan Chargers. I was full of raw emotion – the anger of the afternoon news still simmered in me.
My reaction that day was directed towards whoever had put up the banner. It came from passion and love for the game. The high of Success, nothing more. Remember how Federer reacted on court after winning a Grand Slam or Maradona at a World Cup. It certainly was not directed at Shah Rukh or any other members of the management.
Eventually KKR ’s decision not to retain me did not come in the way of my personal friendship with Shah Rukh. When we met subsequently we were as normal as ever.
Edited excerpts from ‘A Century Is Not Enough’ courtesy Juggernaut
Vis a vis Greg Chappel
The Times of India, Aug 08 2015
Dhritiman Ray
`Dravid told Greg he can't drop a skipper'
It has been a decade since the spat between the then India skipper Sourav Ganguly and coach Greg Chappell broke out in Zimbabwe.
Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) joint secretary Amitabh Choudhary , who was the team manager on that troubled tour, described the first reactions of Ganguly . “It happened at a training session two days before the first Test (in Bulawayo). The skipper left training midway and returned to the empty dressing room. He came back and threw himself on to a chair, visibly disgusted. I asked him what happened.Pointing at Chappell, who was on the ground overseeing the net session, Ganguly said, `That guy's crazy .' Then he told what Chappell had just said,“ Choudhary said in his speech at Xavier Institute of Social Service.What Chappell told Ganguly that day is history. “I instantly understood what had just happened was explosive,“ the Jharkhand State Cricket Association (JSCA) president added. “So after pacifying Ganguly , I had a chat with his deputy Rahul Dravid. Then we walked up to the coach to tell him that dropping the skipper was beyond his jurisdiction.“
Ganguly was dropped after that series and Dravid was named captain. Chappell had an unquiet stint as the India coach, which ended with Team India's early exit from the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies.
