The Royal Bengal Tiger

            Since winning the ICC Champions trophy, media and social networks are abuzz with MS Dhoni’s lasting cricketing legacy. When it comes to the captain, who changed the face of the Indian cricket there is no doubt that MS Dhoni is at the top and his trophies prove that. India’s 2013 ICC Champions Trophy is the third ICC trophy earned by Dhoni after the 2011 World Cup and 2007 20-20 World cup. He is the only captain to have won all 3 major ICC titles. His glorifying triumph doesn’t stop there, he has also won a Champions League 20-20 and 2 IPL trophies thus consolidated himself as India’s most successful captain. Koi Shak (Any doubts!!)

            But I think Sourav “the Royal Bengal Tiger” Ganguly shouldn’t be forgotten for his contribution. He was the one who planted the seeds of revolution in Indian cricket. He didn’t garner the silverwares but he did inject a sense of a self-confidence inside the team, a never say die-attitude, under him the team never gave up.

            Late 90’s was described as Indian cricket’s darkest hour, the reason being the match fixing scandal involving prominent Indian cricketers and Sachin Tendulkar’s disastrous performance as captain. Enters Sourav Ganguly- He constructed Team India into a fighting unit- a force to reckon with. He created a passionate environment and a killer instinct to fight till the finish. A desire that today’s generation has taken to an entirely new level. He infused the previously lacking aggressiveness in the team.

            In the classic Natwest series of 2003 Ganguly behaved in a way which was symbolic of a new mood in India. Until Ganguly, India was a great talking nation, but when he took off his shirt in the Lord’s balcony, cricketing world finally knew that India and Indians can walk the talk. Ganguly took over a side that was reeling under the cloud of the match-fixing controversy and turned it into a team that fought till the very last ball.

            It might sound cliché but this was a man who by his action said I was an Indian and I am as good as anybody else. His actions were very liberating for Indian cricket fans. He made us all believers again. As his arch nemesis, Steven Waugh once famously said that he saw in Sourav a committed individual who wanted to inject some toughness and combativeness into a side that had often tended in the past to roll over and expose a soft underbelly.*

 

            Since he belongs to the Tendulkar era, his statistical records might be diminished (and this goes for all the other great players during the T-era), but in terms of bringing change to the underlying values and attitude of a cricket team plagued by low self-esteem, he  will perhaps be the greatest.

*www.scganguly.com