It was nice knowing you Dada!

These were but just a few things that Ganguly made his trademark and when he’ll bid adieu to international cricket at the end of the Nagpur Test, their won’t be a single cricket lover (irrespective of nationalities) worth his salt who can say that he won’t miss Ganguly.

There are players who come, play and make the followers eat out of their hands by not just their performances but more so because of their persona. In tennis, Pistol Pete ruled the roost during the 90’s but it was bad boy Agassi who made the crowd go berserk.

Even now, Federer may have just lost his No 1 spot but his dominance is unquestionable. Still even the staunchest of Federer supporters have a soft spot for his nemesis Rafael Nadal, for the simple reason that he brings the whole package to the court. The unbridled passion, rippling muscles and the 3/4th trousers simply add to the appeal!

Similarly, as far as cricketing matters are concerned Ganguly definitely doesn’t belong to the same class as Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman, nor can he be put in to the category of Rahul Dravid in terms of high level of concentration and technique. He is a scraper, a street fighter with a terrier-like spirit, which allows him to look right in the eye of the biggest bully in the park and tell him that he’s in charge. And India, a nation not really awash with heroes, loved him for that.

Everyone will talk about the bare-chested Ganguly on the Lord’s balcony and the shrewd captain who got the better of Steve Waugh even before the coin was tossed! But what people need to remember is that he’s done a lot more than getting under the skin of the opposition. I mean the man has close to 20,000 runs in international cricket and 38 hundreds to his credit. In any other era, this record would have been that of the ‘top dog’ in the team. But as his name appeared in the team sheet along with that of a certain Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar hence he will always be remembered in the cricketing world as the ‘wise Odysseus’ like that in the Trojan War, the man who out thought the oppositions as well as found out their Achilles heel.