It is an acclamation by a fan. For Satptarshi Sarkar, the Prince of Kolkata ranks high in the list of achievers. And why not? Sourav Ganguly chose to silence his critics, who welcomed his selection to the Indian team in 1991 as a quota entrant, with a century at Lord’s on his Test debut five years later. Much has been written about this fabulous stroke-player and a captain who led on his terms and backed his players like none before, the latest book by Sarkar, titled “Sourav Ganguly: Cricket, Captaincy and Controversy”, and published by Harper Collins, deals with his career and discusses some issues which are not new to the cricket world.
Sarkar offers his reasons for the book at this stage, seven years after Ganguly retired. “(Sachin) Tendulkar, (Rahul) Dravid and Ganguly are three evergreen characters in Indian cricket catering to two generations, and achieved a kind of immortality in public mind. So a book on any of them has always the potential to be picked up by their respective fans and cricket lovers. From that perspective, their presence is beyond time and in a country where cricket is like a religion, people always love to take a view on these demigods. Moreover, Ganguly has never been away from cricket –– he dons various pertinent hats even today –– commentator, cricket administrator, member in various BCCI committees. So he was and has always been relevant in Indian cricket even after eight years of his retirement from Test cricket,” explains Sarkar.
In Sarkar’s opinion, “This book throws light on some of the areas (underrated all-rounder, Lord of the left handers, relation with Aussies, brand Ganguly etc.) which were not much discussed and highlighted earlier with right focus by mainstream media. In that sense, this book is unique and second to none. Even that way, this book provides some food for thought to Ganguly himself when he will consider writing his autobiography.”
The author is a self-proclaimed fan of Ganguly. “I was the co-founder and editor of much media acclaimed cricket-persona website welovesourav.com, one of the first fan engagement-platform of its kind that started in 2005,”asserts Sarkar.
How is this book different? “The book is an insightful and in-depth study on cricketer Sourav Ganguly from varied angles. It’s neither a fact sheet, nor some thoughts loosely bound –– rather it’s a kaleidoscope. This is not really a biography; rather a collage of several milestone events with comprehensive analysis that happened in cricketer Sourav Ganguly’s mesmerizing career.” With plenty of statistics, the author, who spent two years in chapter wise research, tries to argue his point well.
Ganguly, insists the author, was well-known for his captaincy which was “so prominent that actually overshadowed the batsman Ganguly.” He notes, “Ganguly’s style of captaincy and (MS) Dhoni’s style of captaincy can be a matter of strong debate. So to throw light on such hot topic we need to allow Dhoni to remain captain for a considerable period of time. That was one more reason to take time to complete the book, specially the captaincy chapter. Luckily, just before the book was released, Dhoni called it a day from Test captaincy. So the book could compare their Test captaincy records and style in details. It analyses the captaincy of three generations –– MAK Pataudi, Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni.”
You may add the book to your collection if you are a die-hard Ganguly fan, like the author.
