It was nice knowing you Dada!

There are players who make the followers eat out of their hands by not just their performances but because of their persona.

Sourav Ganguly wouldn8217;t have been himself had he scored a nondescript 30-odd in his final innings. Besides his divine strokes on the off-side one thing that 8216;Dada8217; always brought on the field was sense of theatre. Till the time Ganguly is in the middle, the show won8217;t be devoid of drama!

The grimace after ducking down to every bouncer, the effort to look nonchalant after hitting a boundary or lofting a spinner for one of those 8211; up-up-038;-away sixes and of course the sheepish smile to the non-striker after fending off a bouncer, again!

These were but just a few things that Ganguly made his trademark and when he8217;ll bid adieu to international cricket at the end of the Nagpur Test, their won8217;t be a single cricket lover irrespective of nationalities worth his salt who can say that he won8217;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 908217;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 doesn8217;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 he8217;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 Lord8217;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 he8217;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 8216;top dog8217; 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 8216;wise Odysseus8217; like that in the Trojan War, the man who out thought the oppositions as well as found out their Achilles heel.