Why Dada Should Say Ta Ta…

With Team India, in bits and pieces, sneaking home in the dark of nights with security blankets thrown around them, this is clearly not the best of times for the Men with Blues. Their World Cup misadventure is provoking uncomfortable questions and while Anil Kumble decided to quit ODI, Sachin Tendulkar has been advised to take off his shades and read the writing on the wall.

Fortunately for Sourav Ganguly, it offers the best possible opportunity to walk away, head held high and not hanging in shame.

On the wrong side of 30, Ganguly has had a fairly impressive career. He has been country’s most successful captain and boasts of 10k-plus runs in ODIs. Under him, Team India reached World Cup final, beat Pakistan in Pakistan in both ODI and Test series and drew level with the Aussies at their den.

But the most satisfying point, from his personal view, must be his return after being dumped by Greg Chappell. Ganguly decided he had a point to prove. Like all, even I did not give him a chance when he vowed to come back. But he worked harder and aided by Team India’s spate of flop shows, Ganguly returned with what seemed the mother of all comebacks.

And he proved another point too. Notwithstanding his well-documented weakness for short deliveries – have no illusion, he’s not the only one – Ganguly emerged India’s best batsman in the South Africa tour. He managed to lay the demon to rest in the hostile pitches in the Protealand.

And finally his dreams of playing in another World Cup also came true. What else?

The body is not getting younger. The wear and tear of a roller-coaster career – besides fatherhood, as he once said – has mellowed him down. His new-found approach to batting is earning him runs but also eroding the impact he left in his pomp. It does not make a good sight for his fans to see him playing the second Behala (that’s fiddle in Bengali, also the locality in Kolkata he hails from).

Like the highly likeable Inzamam-ul Haq mourned, not everyone is destined to go on his own term. Ganguly’s World Cup record is only second to Kapil Dev and here the Price of Kolkata has a chance to better the “Haryana Hurricane” by quitting with his grace intact. Cricket has been cruel to those who failed to read the writing on the wall and Ganguly, a smart cricketer throughout, needs to determine his own destiny, instead of leaving it to others.