Ganguly has the sheer gall...

Bertie Wooster thought his manservant Jeeves owed his brains to a regular diet of fish. But the super-valet also possessed a surfeit of gall, and I always believed that eating fish had something to do with that aspect of Jeeves' personality as well. Proof, if I needed any, of the merit of this theory was recently provided by the turn of events in Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly's cricket career.

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The Prince of Calcutta is perhaps the last man to win a popularity contest, especially if the electorate were to consist of rival cricketers or the foreign media. (Of course, he also enjoys a special relationship with match referees, just in case you thought I had overlooked that minor detail.) His poor personal form against Australia did nothing to dilute his brash rejoinders to probing media men, who were seemingly bent upon showing him in a poor light. But that was probably helped by the fact that, under him, India won the series in one of the greatest fightbacks in recent Test history.

In Sri Lanka, Ganguly seemed to have been overwhelmed by events. As the Indians floundered and struggled in the absence of key players, the captain appeared to be deflated by adversity. His head dropped, and he had begun to mumble his replies towards the end of the tour.

But what followed soon after was sensational. The captain went home after the series, where I am sure he waded into home cooking; home being Kolkata, his diet was no doubt dominated by different varieties of fish, a Bengali's idea of a vegetarian diet. Well-rested, and buoyed up by the love of his near and dear, the skipper arrived in South Africa and straightaway demonstrated, by his utterances to the media, that he was back to being his best, cocky, confident self. The South Africans are not a hotshot team, he announced. He also hinted that India's spinners might pose a problem or two to the Proteas.

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Ganguly did not stop with mere talk. He carried his arrogance into the matches. He belted the South African speedsters as if they were club bowlers rolling their arms over at Kalighat or Mohun Bagan. He was particularly severe on his rival number; rarely has Shaun Pollock been treated with such contempt. The numerous sixes that he has already taken off the South African captain's bowling are a clear message to him and his cronies, past and present, Pat Symcox and Allan Donald, who have been exhibiting clear symptoms of foot-in-mouth syndrome in their columns. Unfortunately, Ganguly's thrilling counterattack has been more than nullified by the poor performance of his team.

I was asked to compare Ganguly the captain with some past greats like former Hyderabad captain ML Jaisimha and his buddy MAK Pataudi. They were both remarkable captains, with a fund of cricket knowledge, and both were capable of acute strategic thinking. They were undoubtedly in the forefront of the 60s movement to rid Indian cricket of its colonial hangover, and they showed their fellows that India could actually defeat its former rulers on a cricket field.

Ganguly may still have some way to go before he can acquire the finesse and technical acumen of some of these past masters, but for sheer audacity and irreverence, he is streets ahead of any of his predecessors. Even skeptics like this writer, who came to scoff, cannot help but admire his refusal to be cowed down by opponents and critics alike.