Boria Majumdar in London
Today is Sourav Ganguly’s birthday. He turns 53. And yet, every Bengali still loves to remember him as a young 20-something taking Lord’s by storm on a damp early English summer day in June 1996. Yes, it was some 29 years back, on June 20, 1996, but for us in Bengal, it is still as fresh a memory as India’s Edgbaston win. Pushed up the order to No. 3 in an attempt to expose him to the most challenging of conditions, Sourav Ganguly’s initiation into Test cricket was a real baptism by fire.
The stage was thus set for the single biggest Bengali fairytale in sport. With little tradition in comparison to Mumbai to fall back on, Sourav, with his talent and cultivated aggression, turned himself from being a flavour of Kolkata to a global one.
Without going into the debate of whether he was the best to have led India, suffice to say that Sourav gave us teeth and muscle away from home. Crossing Indian shores meant nothing to him as he handheld Indian cricket to maturity. He built the foundation on which MS Dhoni subsequently made the superstructure.
Dishing out humble pie to the Australians on his way to scoring 144 at Brisbane in 2003-4, Sourav curated a new Indian cricket lexicon in which the word ‘cowardice’ was hated and loathed. Very similar to what we saw in Birmingham a couple of days ago. That, more than anything, was his single biggest contribution.
And this, believe it or not, was against his character. Having known Sourav well for close to three decades now, I can safely say that the aggression we have come to associate with him on the field was a put-on persona. Sourav isn’t the aggressive type. He is polite and gentle, soft-spoken and all grace socially. For the sake of Indian cricket, he had to convert himself into a dada, one who would brook no failure from his boys and tolerate no nonsense from the opposition.
This isn’t a piece about Sourav’s cricket career. Thousands have been written about that, and many more will still be done. Rather, this is about Sourav the Kolkatan, his draw as a transnational icon who continues to be associated with the city. He is Kolkata’s single-biggest box-office star globally, and that for me is his real USP. And this was made possible because Sourav achieved the best of what he did in the two most hostile media environments in the world, England and Australia.
He is revered in England and admired in Australia. So much so that the MCC is planning to install his photo at Lord’s in a gesture to honour him. Sourav, more than any other cricketer, is a story, a multi-layered one with many shades to it. That constitutes his real appeal and perhaps makes it universal.
Sourav is unafraid to be different and that explains his conduct and the number of controversies he has courted. The bakira ki bolbe [What will others say] syndrome was never something Sourav cared for and that has helped him be his own man, someone I call a dear friend and a huge sounding board and advisor. Wish you a very happy and healthy birthday.
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