Wipro Campus Arena

Sourav to me has time and again been an unnatural phenomenon. He has this uncanny knack of rising from the dust and turning all odds in his favour!!!

I have observed Ganguly right from our under – 19 days, while playing together in junior matches and having interacted with him on the field and off it consistently,- it’s given me a good idea of the person he is in both situations…or that’s what I believed!!!

‘Unreasonable!!’Ganguly

I thought of him as a highly talented and more than capable batsman—however, having an attitude and work ethic unbecoming of a successful cricketer. I never gave him a chance to succeed at the higher level simply because of his unprofessional attitude. I have seen him always taking the easy way out –  avoiding critical fielding positions, demoting himself in the batting order at critical situations ( especially when he had to face a good fast bowler ) and avoiding training sessions.

 If all the people (playing or otherwise) around him were asked to fill out a column under the heading ‘Reasons for Ganguly to be unsuccessful ’, the list would be quite extensive.

But, what does Mr. Ganguly do?!! — Goes beyond these reasons by striking out each one on the list and comes out as a ‘hero from zero’.  He has made it happen once too often to be brushed off as luck. He is simply being ‘unreasonable’—not stopped by the reasons!!

Isn’t it a lesson for all of us to learn? — Just take action & go after our possibilities and dreams without succumbing to all the reasons (excuses) for failure. These reasons that would negate the same possibility that we create!! 

Ganguly’s second coming defines and gives practical meaning to the words such as belief, perseverance and confidence.

It also has shattered all my perceptions of him and his ways and my viewpoints of his attitude. There is no one way in achieving your goals as long as you have the belief in your abilities and go after all your possibilities with conviction!!!

Shall we all start being unreasonable going forward?!!!! I will for sure !!….

“Hey man, why did your friend quit?”

I was in the middle of a very intense, day long seminar, cell phone on silent mode - totally shut off from the outside world.

My cell phone read 33 missed calls! Suddenly I felt like I am the most wanted person around! My imagination started running wild, trying to figure, why all the press reporters, were trying to reach me.

I put my curiosity to an end, finally when I decided to answer my phone call during my Bio- Break – I just couldn’t allow one more call to land itself in the missed call list!

This million dollar question was posed to me

The Rahul - I know
Rahul has always been a very intense person. He put his heart and soul to whatever he did and this was very evident, right from when we had just started playing for our state during our under-15 days. He is the best student of the game that I have come across in all my 20 years of playing cricket. He literally eats, sleeps & breathes cricket and is always totally immersed in his thoughts of this game - mostly his batting! He enjoyed his batting the most and it was the only thing that mattered most to him.

Rahul as a Batsman
All my experience with playing with him has been mostly as his Captain, and in the manner in which he handled his batting, right from the practice sessions to the actual game itself, I could tell that he wanted to be the best batsman, in that particular match or in the tournament (if not both) that we were playing in. He once remained with his batting gear on, sitting in the dressing room with both hands on his head even after over 2 hours of him getting out. This was when he was hardly 17 years of age! Such was his passion for his batting!!

Rahul as a Captain
Rahul has proved his leadership abilities in his own quiet way! He was a solid captain – always having planned and prepared in every aspect of the match. He also showed at stages that he can be aggressive, which was generally against his normal way of being. He set a great example of total commitment, discipline and unwavering focus for his entire team to follow — He recently lead his team to a Test Series win against England on their soil, after 21 long years. No mean achievement that!!!

Captaincy Vs Batting
Rahul gave it all that he had, to lead his side to the best of his ability for 2 years now. He didn’t have the luxury of a coach even and that doubled the pressure and responsibility that was already on his shoulder. Like Chappell said “When you do that in a country like ours where there are a billion followers and who believe that they are all qualified to think and feel that they can do a better job, if not as well as he did, it can wear you down mentally sooner than later”

Captaincy did start affecting his batting and his dream was to be the best batsman in the world. No wonder he chose batting over captaincy!

He is a man of great integrity and the minute he realized that he could not do justice to his job or to his satisfaction and in the manner that will serve his country well, he had no two minds in giving it up. In this Cricket crazy nation, it requires a great deal of courage & character to be able to relinquish this most sought after role!

Hats off to you for that, my friend! I agree with Ian Chappell who said “you might not be remembered as the best ever Indian Captain, but you will be recalled as the one who left the job with great dignity.”!!!