THE SHOWMAN IS GONE BUT THE SHOW IS GOING ON

Cricket is considered as "religion" in our country and is scrutinized with ease and attention.
Indian cricket has fetched many captains over the years who inspite of all their efforts couldnt bring india to position to boast of.
But the man who has changed the whole appearance of indian cricket is "the prince of kolkata".
As a person,Sourav Ganguly is a quiet, unassuming, undemonstrative man with nerves of steel and such qualities are required to make a team of top level.
When he took over the captaincy after the match-fixing exposes in 2000, he quickly proved to be a tough, intuitive and uncompromising leader after india won the home ODI series against the south africans by 3-2 and dada led from the front being the second highest run getters in the series.
Soon he was made the captain of the test side.
How can one ever forget how his side defeated the mighty aussies by 2-1 at home .Also he made aussie captain steve waugh to wait for the toss where he reached 15 minutes late.Such is the attitude of dada.
He was always antipathetic and barbaric in his approach as a captain.Under his stewardship India started winning Test matches away, and put together a splendid streak that took them all the way to the World Cup final in 2003.
Ganguly was always bold,straightforward and undisguised about whatever he does.
Sourav Ganguly took off his shirt in public and brandished it in the air to celebrate India's winning of the match at lords in 2002 natwest trophy final against england. He was later strongly condemned for tarnishing the gentleman's game image of cricket and disrespecting Lords protocol. Ganguly said that he was only mimicking an act performed by the English all-roundet flintoff during a tour of India.

But controversies always followed him.The beginning of the end came in 2004 at Nagpur - when his last-minute withdrawal played a part in Australia clinching the series - and things went pear shaped when his loss of personal form coincided with India's insipid ODI performances.Also the famous chappel-sourav's embroilment soon followed.What added fuel to fire was his lack of form at that time.He was thrown out of the Indian side by the all time biased selector Mr.venksarkar and everybody thought that is the end of an illustrious carreer.But dada had other plans.
He made his comeback soon in 2006-2007 against south africa in tests.Though india lost the series,ganguly was the highest run getter for india then.Then he didnt look back.
what followed is many astonishing and frantic knocks,couple of man of the series awards and VOLUNTARY RETIREMENT. Ganguly was at his best then as far as form is concerned.Ganguly had been prolific in both Test and ODI cricket in the year 2007. He scored 1106 Test runs at an average of 61.44 (with three centuries and four fifties) in 2007 to become the second highest run-scorer in Test matches of that year after kallis. He is the fifth highest rungetter in 2007 in ODIs where he scored 1240 runs at 44.28.Still he was left out of the Irani trophy team.this is so unconvincing,unthinkable and unimaginable as well.
Ganguly had no options left but to end his career on a high."I was tired of being humiliated again and again. I don't want to play at the mercy of others" he said in an interview just before the aussie series at home and hence declared his retirement soon after stating the aussie series would be his last.it was 7th octobor,2008.I can never ever forget that day when politics won over cricket.But dada still has something to prove .He scored heavily in his last series which led india to a 2-0 series win against the doughty aussies.He played his last test at nagpur and that was the end of an era and famous "the fab 4" link has been vanished from Indian test cricket.
Ganguly has played an important contribution in finding out and supporting players like bhajji,zaheer and yuvi who are at present the backbone of indian cricket.
SOME OF HIS UNIQUE CONTRIBUTIONS-
Only man in history of ODI cricket to grab 4 consecutive MOM awards.
Led india to win 21 test matches ,the best achieved by any other indian captain.
Highest run getter for 1st wicket in ODIs along with sachin.
This list is too long to mention.
THE SHOWMAN IS INDEED GONE BUT HIS MEMORIES,HIS UNIQUE STYLE OF BATTING(OFF SIDE),HIS EXTRAORDINARY CAPTAINSHIP SKILLS,HIS QUARRELSOME AND AGGRESSIVE ATTITUDE WILL BE CHERISHED FOREVER.

hats off to dada.we all love you.
see you in ipl.