The phrase “class is permanent” is true. Whether he is Rahul Dravid with his wall-like solid dedication to furnish the base of Indian under-19 cricket, Sachin Tendulkar with his ability to inspire the youth by his calm composure, or Virendra Sehwag, VVS Lakshman with his tweets and commentary. “There is only one boss, or in Bengali terminology, there is only one ‘dada.’
Whether he was the captain of Team India or the president of CAB, his ability to lead and fight until the end proved invaluable for Indian cricket.” he has been serving as the president of the world’s richest cricket board BCCI, his way of dealing with things is in the headlines.
Saurabh Ganguli, call him whatever you like Bengal Tiger, prince of Kolkata, or the king of offside, nothing matches his understanding of the game. His insight into the game was what made him, what he is today. When he was the captain of the Indian team, he took his chances and made India a strong side. Before him, India had many impressive and skilled players, well some even sort of legends like Sachin, Dravid, Kumble, and many others.
But the history of Indian cricket has taught us that in spite of having such world-class players, the Indian side failed many times on big occasions. Sachin, on the other hand, won many matches single-handedly but that was not enough. Actually, losing the final was trending at that time for the Indian side. What India needed was someone who could inspire the team to play as a unit, not as an individual.
And this is whe team india was transformed by a captain and a coach. World class players were transformed into world class match winners. Lads like kaif, yuvraj, bhajji, nehra, viru, jaheer etc took the world cricket by storm. And that was because they had a captain who looked into the eye of the opponenet team and taught his players the same.
There were two major victories that defined the fighting spirit of “The Bengal tiger”. One was the victory at “Eden Garden” at Kolkata against the mighty Aussies. When VVS Laxman and Dravid outplayed the world’s best bowling attack. It was not just some display of classical batting or some best partnership of test cricket or spinning capability of Harbhajan Singh. You cannot defeat the world’s best team of that decade by just some individual performance.
Nothing less than a mindset of the mountain’s strength and courage of steel could have done that. But Indians did what no one could even think of. It was possible only because the Indian team did not get intimidated by the name of Aussies. Their captain made the Australian captain wait on the ground at the time of the toss. Such an attitude against Aussies had never been displayed by any captain in the world before. But Ganguli did that. He fought to win that test match, by sending VVS Laxman on no. 3 even after being forced to follow on. And what happened next became history.