It’s easy, in this age of Dhoni, Sehwag and Pathan, to forget just what a majestic sight Sourav Ganguly presented when in full flow. Emmanuel Nakaana hasn’t forgotten. The youngest cricketer (just 14) at the recent under-19 World Cup in Colombo, Nakaana of Uganda says the last time he watched an Indian game was some years back but one image remained: ‘‘Ganguly dancing down the track against the spinner and the ball landing over the stadium roof.’’Over the next few days the obits will speak in glowing terms of his captaincy and what it did for Indian cricket, possibly even his off-side play, but what the cricket fan would remember is his strokeplay throwing caution to the winds.Has his exit come too early? Not to those who have seen him on the sidelines, a sorry bit player in a drama where once he was lead actor and scriptwriter.When his coterie of loyal journalists approached him for quotes in the Dravid era he’d say, almost apologetically, ‘‘Please hold on for a while, let all this die down.’’This is in total contrast with the cocky captain. With an obliging coach, an amazing run as captain and a gang of loyal prot‚g‚s, Ganguly was never short of words or under-equipped for a confrontation. Excessive appealing, baring his chest on the Lord’s balcony and ‘tossing out’ Steve Waugh were extensions of his penchant for dancing down the track and throwing caution to the winds.There’s one other reason we must thank him for: Nurturing the likes of Yuvraj, Sehwag and Harbhajan. Indeed, his gut feeling for a player rarely let him down. The only notable time was when Irfan Pathan’s name cropped up for the 2004 Australian tour after his 9-wicket haul in the under-19 Asia Cup. Ganguly had then told the selectors, ‘‘I can’t take an under-19 kid to Australia’’.In days to come the captain was proved wrong — and the selectors didn’t forget that slight. Today, they got their own back. But there’s surely another play somewhere — commentator, perhaps — where he will be writing his own script. He deserves it.
