Sticking to the theme of Goafest, former Indian cricket team captain and BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India), Sourav Ganguly took to the stage on the final day of the festival to discuss how he adapted his persona on the cricket field.

This helped him and the Indian cricket team famously beat the Australians, who had won 16 Test Matches in a row before the team did what many labelled the impossible in the Eden Gardens Test Match. VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid played exceptional innings and Harbhajan Singh and co took over on the last day of the Test match for the famous victory.

Ahead of the Test series, not only did Ganguly become more aggressive, but he also used tactics to annoy the opposition captain Steve Waugh, which included delaying walking out for the toss.

Sports journalist Boria Majumdar moderated the talk. He started the talk by asking Ganguly why did he change his persona. 

“I realised the only way we could beat them was by changing the persona. They had great players in their team and had that ‘win at all costs’ attitude,” he said.

“It was an important phase of our career – we (Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Anil Kumble and Sachin Tendulkar) were young boys. I’m a completely different person off the field. Cricket and wanting to win got me going. The competition around me spurred me on. There are so many good players around so whoever gets this job, has to compete and win,” he said. 

“To continue as captain of India, I had to change things around. We played outstanding cricket in that Test series after the loss in Mumbai in the first Test. It included the best innings ever played by VVS and Rahul. Chennai was special after that. I don’t think I’ve played a test series better,” he said. 

Adversity

Majumdar then moved to about five years later in Ganguly’s career, when he was dropped from the team shortly after Greg Chappell took over as the coach of the team. He mentioned how he saw Ganguly run 25 laps of Eden Gardens during that time and stated that he ‘adapted and returned’ to the team.

“Before I got dropped I had 10 years of cricket for India. Six years were as captain. I came back and played for another for years after that. This just shows adversities come in everyone’s life,” he said.

He linked that to the advertising industry. 

“Advertising folks deal with corporates who may be unreasonable sometimes. But it’s the downs that teach you how good the ups are,” added Ganguly.

“For me, I’ve played cricket for so long. I went to a good school, but nothing taught me better than sports. After a 100 – you know the next innings, you start from 0. You don’t carry forward anything. Adversities make you a better person. In 2006, I got dropped for non-cricketing reasons. I got dropped from ODI cricket, where the only person who scored more runs during the 10-year period I played was Sachin. And that was marginal. It was hard to digest,” he said. 

During those months out, Ganguly knew he could score runs for India. His father was an ardent cricket supporter, and he discussed his return to the game and he thought it got tougher with every game the Indian team won. Ganguly stated how newspaper headlines also brought up Ganguly every time India won a series during his absence and mentioned how the wins made his comeback to the team that much more unlikely.

“I told my dad then too – I had two choices, either I give up or keep practising and wait for the recall. My numbers as captain were far beyond other Indian captains at that time. I captained India for more than 200 games during which we won in Pakistan, Australia and England. I could have given up. But I wanted to give it a try. You could get important roles in advertising at 50-60, but for an athlete, it stops at close to 40. If I didn’t play for India again, it would be okay, but I didn’t want to get to a stage I would regret I didn’t try,” he said.

“I told dad there’s no guarantee (I’ll play for India again) – we had some great players who were climbing the ladder. All I knew was that I faced success during my career and I wasn’t going to go out without a chance. I kept training. I ran those laps at Eden Gardens with anger. There were days when I finished more laps than I was supposed to do because my mind wasn’t in the running, it was anger,” he added.

Six months later India went to South Africa, whose bowling line-up was one of the best in the world at the time.

Ganguly got a late call-up to the Test squad. Majumdar asked him whether there he was ‘scared’ in any way to play the best bowling attack on some fast-bowler-friendly pitches given there was no support from the coach.

“I wasn’t scared. My record as captain was better than my coach’s career overall. I’d been to South Africa many times. In my life, I’ve never thought I won’t score runs. I knew I was not a young player anymore and I won’t be given time to prove myself. I wanted to go to South Africa and score those runs.  If I scored runs in that series, it would be enough to secure my captain (Rahul Dravid) and selector’s faith for four to five years,” he said.

“The coach wanted me to practice straight from the flight. As I landed, he asked me to put my pads on and play against the new ball against the fast bowlers in the nets,” he said.

Then came the first Test. Ganguly top-scored for India and got 51 not out in the first innings. India won the Test match.

“I finished the series with the most number of runs. As I sat in the corner in the dressing room after the series, I felt well. I hadn’t played ODI cricket for eight months. While packing my bags, Rahul approached me and told me we were playing West Indies in a week in India, and I’d be opening the batting for the series. Just like that, I got my ODI position back,” he said.

Linking it to the advertising and marketing industry, Ganguly said, “All of us will be going through different circumstances. Bosses might think that the young boy is better than you, has more energy and needs to be invested in. It doesn’t work that way. If you go the hard yards, you’ll still be as good. If you stop believing then, the world might believe in you but you won’t succeed.”

Media 

Ganguly also stated that the current players need to ignore naysayers on social media. Back when he made his debut in England, Sportstar in India labelled him a ‘quota player’.

“Thank God I saw that after my two back-to-back hundreds in England. Today, if Virat sneezes, before it’s complete, I get that information on my phone. I was talked about as someone who didn’t deserve a place. I didn’t know anything. Had I seen what Sportstar wrote, I may have lost faith in myself. The mindset I had then on my debut at Lord’s – I never had it in the next 400 games. I had no fear. Every ball I played was new. It changed my life,” he said.

T-shirt at Lord’s

Sticking to Lord's, Majumbar asked Ganguly about the T-shirt incident on the balcony.

“It was satisfaction. I come from Kolkata from a football background and there’s a lot of competitiveness. People think we only eat in West Bengal. But there are some fierce Bengali characters too. The first thing emotion was happiness because we beat England in England. Secondly, Flintoff did the same thing at Wankhede a few months before. They equalised the series when he did it. I was young in 2002 and we had just won the game. So I went for it,” he said.

“The team was a fantastic blend of Indian culture – gentlemen in Laxman, Rahul and Kumble. Then there were fierce personalities like Harbhajan, Yuvraj and myself. As we were approaching victory, Bhajji came up to me and said jeetenge (we’ll win). I said if we win, we’ll take out our shirts. I got resistance from Dravid, Laxman and Tendulkar. I told these guys (Harbhajan and Yuvraj) don’t listen to Tendulkar. So, I took off my shirt when we won. Bhajji tried to take it out too, but VVS kept pulling it down,” he added. 

He ended his talk by urging the room to keep going during low times.

“Circumstances change, but what doesn’t change is your faith and belief. They are small and simple words but have enormous power,” he said.

Catch our interview with Ganguly in the next print issue of Manifest.