The sunset was warm and glowing. Sourav Ganguly chose a good day to be his last as an international cricketer. It didn’t seem for a while that he had the choice but, like he has so often done, he created the opportunity and having done so, didn’t let go. And so a fine batsman has gone when still good, when still scoring runs.
Many epitaphs have been written. Sport can be fulfilling and yet cruel for epitaphs are written about men in their mid-thirties. Not surprisingly, Ganguly the captain has received as much space as Ganguly the man who competed with god through the off-side. In a sense that was inevitable for despite several fine moments with the bat, especially in one-day cricket where he was one of the greats, his legacy as captain is greater.
For those who value the here and now, and for those not yet converted to this game eight years ago, Indian cricket was in much strife in 2000. Some people had stopped trusting the outcome of cricket matches, Tendulkar had pulled out of the captaincy, India had been demolished in Australia and vanquished by South Africa at home. Somebody needed to grab public imagination; draw back the believers in exile. It was in such times that Sourav Ganguly became captain of India. In the next four years Indian cricket grew strong and proud but more importantly, renewed its bonds with the faithful who make it what it is. Many great innings were played in that period, fine spells were bowled, but the buck stopped at the leader. Ganguly was an excellent war-time general.
Along the way some matches were lost and many were won. But nothing quite defined Ganguly’s reign as much as that moment on the Lord’s balcony. He claims to be embarrassed by it and that is a strange admission. It was spontaneous and representative of a new generation. Young men watching it said “yes” not because it was the done thing to do but because they were part of a generation that had the confidence to give as good as they got. Ganguly on the balcony at Lord’s became a symbol; maybe like Lagaan did. It was also, come to think of it, what Ganguly was all about; not rude and disrespectful but defiant and increasingly confident.
Somewhere along the way though, an impression was sought to be created that Ganguly was more instinctive than cerebral; that he just did and didn’t think. The instinct of a fool counts for little and it is only a qualified man that can back a hunch. In most cases instinct is derived from study anyway. But even that impression was flawed as I discovered when he accepted my invitation to do a business show on CNBC. Ganguly was on the show along with B Muthuraman, the head of Tata Steel and he spoke beautifully about leadership; about separating his role as a batsman from that of a captain, about how to inspire confidence in youngsters and about mistakes that leaders can make.
“The best captains get it right seven times out of ten,” he said. “I think I get it right five times out of ten. But I know, even when I get it wrong, that my team believes I was wrong in trying to be right.” This was in 2004 when he was probably the best man to have led India onto a cricket ground, certainly in the years since I started watching seriously. That is about as far as a leader can go; when a team grants a leader his mistakes because it believes they were committed in the desire to be right.
It is tempting to argue that Ganguly should have played longer. But just as nobody knows when the stock markets peak and when they hit a bottom, so too it is with people. The highs often attain that status later and things are rarely as bad as they seem while they are happening. Who knows what the future would have held for Ganguly for his life has rarely been predictable.
He has chosen a good moment; one that in days to come we will remember with warmth rather than sadness.
