DADA-GIRI

DADA-GIRI

Prince of Calcutta or Bengal Tiger or Comeback Kid or Maharaja of Indian Cricket or Captain Courageous or God on Off-Side or Genius on Timing; Saurav Chandidas Ganguly has many nick-names. Out of all names though for Ganguly “Dada-Giri” suits him the best. He remains best and certainly most elegant and flashy Left Handed Batsman played for India.

Out of many achievements that he has been able to accomplish, injecting Spirit and Attitude in Indian Cricket Team via his idealistic “Dada-Giri” would be something for which he will be remembered for centuries. His Captainship single-handedly changed the Outlook of the Indian Team.

“DADA” as we affectionately call Saurav Ganguly has given many moments of success.

Out of all the moments, his waving shirt off at auspicious Lord’s Balcony after winning the unbelievable Net West Final is simply Unforgettable. This was aggression personified.

There are couple of one-day series against Pakistan at Toronto, where he was simply phenomenon with his gentle medium pacer bowling and when Man of The Match was getting decided before even the captain throw the coin for Toss.

It was Ganguly who played that magnificent century inning at Dhaka against Pakistan to chase down more than 300 runs. In Today’s World, 300 seems like a everyday story to chase but that was the inning and the year which gave entire India the hope that India can win the matches without Sachin Tendulkar’s Century.

First Test Match of 2004 Series, against Australia at Brisbane, one of the greenest Top and the person who is least likely to score even double digit runs (described by Pandits), this Bravest of all Captain, comes in and scored 144 runs against the best of the pace attack of Australia.

He recognized the very talent of many youngsters and stuck with them for entire his captainship era. Be It, Harbhajan Singh or Sehwag or Mohd. Kaif or Yuvraj Singh or Zaheer Khan; all remained part of his winning scheme and that was the key reason for India to be able to reach World Cup Final.

One of the remarkable things is, India has never Lost a Test Match when Saurav has scored a century, and only other batsman for India to achieve this task is G.R.Vishwanath.

After being humiliated by media and selectors to make a come back and deliver at the highest level can only be compared with Dennis Lillie who made a come back even after accident and Pataudi who lost his eyes.

Scoring 183 against Sri Lanka in World-Cup Final against World’s Best Off Spinner(chucker), and those “Dancing Down The Track” and hitting the ball out of ground type of sixes just makes the best viewable every time I turn on You-Tube.

Every 100 tells a story --> 100 @ Calcutta his home ground against Pakistan and then followed it up with double century, 100 @ Zimbabwe after Greg Chappell’s blame that he should not be part of playing XI , All 3 hundreds in England against the condition which many has described Ganguly is not equipped to play with.

I always felt, after Kapil Dev’s retirement that Indian Cricket will not be the same and then we found Tendulkar at his best and my favorite Azhar. After Azhar retired I said the same thing, cricket will not be fun to watch after the Artistic brilliance departed but then I found Lara and Gilchrist era. After Lara, Wasim Akram, Warne and Gilchrist gone, it was perhaps Ganguly and Sehwag who kept me awake at night to watch the game. Now After Dada’s departure, before I even feel a hole, I already have couple of favorites to watch the game, “M.S.Dhoni” and “Kevin Pietersen”.