The Return of "The Prince of Kolkata"

Indian cricket has taken a full circle in a span of just 10 months when the national selection committee headed by Dilip Vengsarkar announced the name of former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly in the team for the three tests series against South Africa.

Yes, the man who once was popularly known as “Dada” by his boys for his commanding leadership qualities; the man who took Indian cricket form zero to hero is all set to grace the field with his trade mark cover drives and lofted sixes over the long on boundary.

The Indian team under the partnership of rahul dravid and greg chappell has now taken the back seat with their follies of still pursuing with youngsters in the name of experiment has now back fired. With the world cup around the corner and to see the team still struggling to find the right composition is something every Indian will loose sleep.

In a country like India where cricket is a religion, the team’s performance is always under the scanner. They are given the god’s status when they win matches and when thay lose thay are under the microscope of criticism from all quarters, right from the boys in schools to the boys in parliament.

Sourav’s last appearance for India in a test match was at Karachi against Pakistan earlier this year and in an ODI was against New Zealand at Harare last year. His return came in from no where with his name making the news just a week before the team was announced in Delhi.

His century in the Duleep trophy against north zone came at the right time and his valiant 43 runs in the second innings and a match haul of 5 wickets against Punjab in the Ranji trophy match caught the nation’s attention. Then his return was scripted on the ‘wall’.

One should not forget that it was Sourav who took charge as captain when there was no single brave heart including Tendulkar, Dravid and Kumble to come forward and accept the captaincy after Indian cricket was rocked by match fixing scandals.

His first significant move as a captain came in the selection committee meeting where he demanded the selection of Harbajan Singh in the Indian team for the test matches against the Aussies when Anil Kumble was injured. He in fact threatened the board that he will pull out of captaincy if he is not given the team he wants. Even before that he pumped in young blood when players like Shewag, Yuvraj, Zaheer and wicket keeper Dahiya made into the team for the ICC knock-out tournament in Nairobi in the year 2000.

One can’t forget the incident where he played with the Australian captain Steve Waugh’s psyche in the Kolkata test match where he made Waugh to wait for the toss for nearly 15 minutes. He encouraged youngsters and made them perform which was clearly evident when we won the series 2-1 from a hopeless situation. And by this time he had already earned respect from the cricketing community all over the world.

He had the vision for team India. This was evident in the team’s performances in Natwest trophy, World cup 2003, in the tour down under and the historic tour of Pakistan in 2004 and also was the highlights of his captaincy.

Many felt he couldn't play the bouncer while others adored him saying that he was God on the off-side; some criticized his lack of athleticism, others took immense pride in his ability to inspire a side. In short, during his term at the helm Indian cricket was filled with fascinating dramas but at the same time no one can dispute the fact that he is India’s most successful captain ever.

To say the least he fall prey to politics within the cricket board. Since then he was under the dark clouds which was apparent in the blue billion ad where he says, “I am Sourav Ganguly, hope u remember me…”

According to me and many former cricketing greats Sourav deserves a resounding farewell for all that he has done to Indian cricket, something similar to Steve Waugh’s farewell party. And now that he have got the chance to prove, he should make sure that his bat do the talking.

Team’s dismal performances for such a long time have made the selectors to look back to the experienced hands of Kumble, Laxman, Zaheer and Sourav. With all making a comeback to the national side one can only say the Indian cricket has reached the point where it all began a year ago.