It was a typical day at school. Yours truly, who was a Prefect (Head of one of the four houses) was considered to be ’The Supreme Being’ (Sorry Spooks!) and had the liberty to laze away on the last bench and get away with it. Teachers used to assume that I was poring into my books, concentration personified. Little did they know that my ’book’ was actually a photo album, which contained photographs of pretty little things who lived in my heart. Why did I look at their photographs, when some of those girls were sitting beside me, did you ask? Well, it’s a tip from the master. Look down at your desk and the teacher would never sing to you, ’’Will the real slim shady, please stand up ...’’
But, my teacher, Mrs. Bode had wisened to my ways. She used to teach us geography, a subject which I found very hypocritical. If you are wondering where hypocrisy comes into geography, well, in a test, when I was asked to describe the structure of Indian roads, I wrote the following -
The structure of Road is as follows: Antara Mali looked damn hot. Manoj Bajpai was good, though he tended to overact in places. Vivek Oberoi was all right in whatever role he had.
I still do not know why I got a zero. Maybe Mrs. Bode was not a fan of Antara, Manoj and Vivek. But, then why did she ask that question. Wierd ...
As I was talking about Mrs. Bode wisening up to my ways. She was teaching an incredibly boring chapter on the minerals found in India, and I surely didn’t help matters for myself by suggesting ’Bisleri’ as one of the minerals. Emphasizing the importance of a particular question, she squealed in her nasal voice, This is very important from the Board point of view. My reaction was, ’’Which Board, Ma’m? SSC Board or you? Er ... I mean, SSC Board or Mrs. Bode?
Another incident I remember was when Mrs. Bode was teaching us about India’s climate. When she said, ’’our climate is extremely hot’’, I muttered, ’’Obviously, with Kareena Kapoor around, it’s got to be hot!’’ Wonder why she glared on hearing that ... Anyway, when she went on about how hot our climate is due to reasons other than Ms. Kapoor, I raised my hand.
’’Ma’m, I got a doubt. If our climate is as hot as you claim, why do Indians wear so many clothes?
’’Raj, I expected something like that from you. Anyway, don’t you know that India is the country that does everything different. We have ministers who doze off in the Parliament, we have the nerve to abuse the delightful taste of popcorn by calling mindless rubbish as ’popcorn cinema’. Similarly, in our country, it’s not the girls who strip. It’s Salman Khan. I think he is a guy, but I’m not so sure ... And there are many who are learning from him, bless their souls. Even Dada does that!’’
’’Ma’m, your grandfather removes his shirt and dances ?!’’
’’Shut up, Raj. I am talking about Saurav Ganguly.’’
He is hated. He is loved. He is laughed at. He is admired. His name is Nagh ... er ... Saurav Ganguly.
Saurav Ganguly started his international career way back in 1991. After playing a single match, he was dumped by the bunch of jokers aka the national selectors, who complained that if he is not ready to carry out drinks to the field, the Board would lose millions because the drinks (which have apparently sponsored our swindlers aka the BCCI) are not taken out to the ground!
In 1996, those drinks (I will not mention the guilty brand, or their sales might stop tomorrow!) stopped sponsoring the BCCI. It was now the time of their rivals to sponsor the team and so, our jokers decided to stop joking around and for once, take two deserving players to the tour of England. While one of them was Rahul Dravid, the other was Saurav Ganguly.
After plenty of struggles, Ganguly came into his own as a batsman when he got the opportunity to open the batting with Tendulkar in ODIs. He soon became a fearsome batsman and a handy bowler, with the ’97 Sahara Cup and the ’99 World Cup being his moments of glory.
After the gruesome tour Down Under in 2000, Sachin Tendulkar informed the selectors, ’’Ailaa! I definitely ... well ... definitely do not want to be the captain. Another captain, go get it!’’
And began Ganguly’s journey into the love and hate lists of Indians. After an uneventful few months at the office, came the Aussies, with Steve Waugh more obsessed with ’the final frontier’ than I am with Kareena Kapoor. A humiliating loss at Mumbai meant that the selectors had warned Ganguly that his head was in danger. So, to protect his head, Saurav wore not one, but two caps at Kolkata. Laxman’s 281 was what followed, and on the final day, when the Aussies were trying to save the game, Steve Waugh nicked the ball. Everyone knows that the only thing that Saurav can catch is his shirt, and quite expectedly, he floored the ball. Which instigated a dig from Waugh, ’’You just dropped the Test, mate.’’ (Something similar to what he told Gibbs). What followed was a series of inspired bowling changes and resilient cricket in the final Test to have Ganguly on top of the world.
Statistics may be coming by the dozen. One says that in Test Matches, he averages merely 25-odd since 2000, if a couple of series in England are excluded. Wow, what a telling statistic! By that accord, if all his innings apart from his last one are excluded, a certain batsman, instead of averagin 99.94, would average a nice and sweet 00.00! No, I am not comparing Ganguly to Bradman. But no, he is surely not as bad a batsman in Tests as everyone is making him out to be. They say that he is bad against genuine quick bowling, but then, apart from a few Gods like Tendulkar, Dravid, Lara and Hayden, who isn’t?
And however bad a batsman he may be, the fact of the matter remains that he is an outstanding captain. I have been watching cricket since the past ten years and there are only three captains whom I have genuinely admired. Hansie Cronje (on whom my first MS review based), Steve Waugh (who makes me go Waah! Waah!) and as Geoffrey Boycott calls him, The Prince Of Coolcootta.
Paradoxically, Saurav’s best quality is that he not nice. He knows how to give it back to bowlers who use their lip more than Kareena Kapoor pouts hers. It is because of him that India has acquired the killer instinct to go for gold and abondoned the ’chalta hai’ attitude. He knows what he wants and he makes sure that everyone knows about it. Not shy to scream at his players if they err, he remains by their side when the chips are down.
Rumor also has it that he is a Salman Khan fan and tried to emulate him on the Lord’s balcony. Seriously speaking, Saurav’s most (in)famous act didn’t need the kind of prominence it got. It was just another example of him paying back the opposition in the same coin. Yours truly, who was present at the Wankhede last year, had cringed when he saw Andrew Flintoff strut around without his shirt having taken the final Indian wicket. Saurav’s act was a fitting reply.
Sorry, continued in the comments section, please check it out!