Done with dignity

Sportsmen, especially those from the subcontinent, are not known for going gently into the night; they rage against the dying of the light. Or, to put it less poetically, they usually have to be dragged out of the team kicking and screaming. Whether Sourav Ganguly jumped before he was pushed or it was part of a deal he struck with the selectors is immaterial. In the end, it was done with dignity. The question that hangs like the monsoon cloud over the Australia series now is - how will this affect the other seniors?

The last dignified retirement was Sunil Gavaskar’s two decades ago. Ravi Shastri too went on his terms once his media career was ready. Gavaskar called up a few journalists during a Test in Bangalore, thanked them for their support and then broke the news. He made 96 in his last Test on a turner, one of his finest innings. He finished with 188 at Lord’s, his last first-class innings. Strangely, not one of his 34 Test match hundreds was made at Lord’s.

Since then, Kapil Dev went on for too long, a pathetic figure with little sympathy in Mohammad Azharuddin’s team. Azharuddin himself stopped tantalisingly at Test No. 99, having extended the use of his supple wrists to counting tainted money. Javagal Srinath couldn’t work out a happy ending to a successful career, and neither could Dilip Vengsarkar. The lesser performers, by definition, would not have been able to anyway.

In the early part of his career, I had written Ganguly had the potential to finish as the country’s finest left-hand batsman. When we met later, he suggested, half-jokingly, that he was aiming higher: how about the best-ever, left or right? But already his contemporaries Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid had begun to pull ahead, and it was not even an academic possibility. Yet, Ganguly had one thing neither of the other two had - a wide-angled approach to captaincy. He enjoyed the challenge, and made up for tactical shortcomings with man-management not seen since the days of Tiger Pataudi.

Like Tiger, he initiated a self-confidence movement in the team. He got the players to believe in themselves, supported the youngsters, and showed when required he could play politics with the best of them. When results mattered, he had the results. His was one of the most interesting phases of Indian cricket, as he led the team to victories abroad, in England, in the West Indies, in Australia.

The manner of Ganguly’s farewell is bound to lead to all manner of speculation. He was the most vulnerable of the five seniors – Anil Kumble, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman being the others. Will he be dropped if he fails in the first Test against Australia, or the first two? Now that he is quitting, would it not make sense to pick his replacement for the last two Tests and thus prepare the new man for the series against England and Pakistan? Or will Ganguly travel around the country, playing all four tests no matter what, and have a series of farewells like an ageing rock star?

This is a new situation for Indian cricket. There will be mourning in Kolkata, but no effigy-burning because there is no one to blame. It must be very frustrating for Ganguly’s fans. Yet, their hero has played 109 Tests, led in 49 and finishes as India’s most successful captain. It is an impressive record. I suspect posterity will treat Ganguly much better than his contemporaries did.