Please Dada, for old times sake!

To say that I haven’t watched the IPL at all would be a travesty of truth, I have done so on those odd occasions when a certain south-paw has made a right arse of him. Don’t get me wrong here, I am not here to rant against Sourav Ganguly or ask him to take the easier route and leave the game before the fickle nature of public perception turns against him.

No, this is about a time gone by when I was a little kid growing up on a much younger Sourav Ganguly. Oddly enough, I was not his admirer; I even derived pleasure at the expense of his failings and adoration for ‘The Prince’ was not a natural progression for me but mind you, I had and still have an immense respect for the man but the evolution from having just respect to adoration came about in one of his more darker hours – a dramatic fall from grace after falling out with Greg Chappell and the subsequent exit from the team. Now, this was not the way to treat a man of his caliber but the construction of his mind was such that he would tide over this crisis and come back with aplomb. The rest, as they say, is history.

Cut to now, the Ganguly that I see is not the one that I grew up on, I barely recognize this behemoth. He looks like a man whose key has been turned too many times over, one whose body and heart are in such deep a conflict that it renders him a bumbling fool. But Ganguly is not a bumbling fool, the magic is still there but it is rare. Ask Mr.Steyn and he shall tell you that the caress through the off-side was as good as he has ever seen but rare and short-lived glimpses of brilliance do not make a good performer. The last outing was terribly painful, he looked completely knackered and he fell inevitably and almost inexplicably; the Ganguly of yore would not have been castled off that ball when faced with a situation like that.Since every great man deserves a gracious exit and very few get one, I hope with all the hope that I possess that today at his beloved Eden he turns back the clock, gives us a healthy dose of those effortless caresses, dances down the track and launches the many pretenders who call themselves spinners into the delirious masses present inside the stadium, and into our hearts.

I do not care for the outcome, Kolkata wins or Pune wins – it is all the same, but all I want is the rise of a fallen giant albeit for a day. So welcome back Dada, all I ask for is one more inning, for old times’ sake, make me a kid once again, make me relive those moments when your genius lit up my grandmother’s face and brought a frown upon mine but only this time I shall smile for my grandmother too. Mr. Ganguly, one final ‘Blaze of Glory’ is all that I ask for, is it too much?