Memories and Talent 'from Bengal' ::: 'dada' Saurav ::: 'Perfect' cricketer to someone who said - "... even Maa Durga cannot predict elections results"

Arguably, there was no vulgarity to his batting. Instead, true to tradition, his strokes spoke of a sculptor with a bat, a poet on the pitch. 

As Rahul Dravid says, "I told him, as far as the off side is concerned, first there’s God then there’s you." 

Bengal has truly found its man. -- Thus ran a story on Saurav Ganguly, the cricket icon from Kolkata. 

Photo: India Today - 1997 article 

"Talent, improving, hope? Forget it, in Bengal they’ll sneer at you. This is much bigger, this is more than sport. This is about a fine cricketer turned by a people obsessed with individual achievement into a hero, a semi-icon.

If he was born anywhere else in India, Ganguly would not have merited such genuflection; but Bengal, short of heroes, seeing in him a reflection of its once considerable glory, looking to him to restore its receding pride, has elevated him to being a literal Prince of Calcutta," wrote 'India Today' (in an 1997 article).  

The headline was also salutary - 

"Sourav Ganguly: The birth of an icon".  

Do not make a mistake. Do not fall into any trap.   

"Take one story. There are days, says Ganguly, when people come from neighbouring localities or towns to see him and his durwan says he’s not there. So they touch the gate in reverence, smile and leave content," runs the article.

"One thing is clear. Fly the globe, ride universal highways, sail any waters, and you won’t find anyone who worships heroes like they do in Bengal. During Rabindranath Tagore’s funeral procession, tufts of his beard were plucked off as mementos.

In 1911, when Mohan Bagan beat a British regimental team to become the first Indian team to win soccer’s IFA Shield, legend has it that Kanu Ray, the teenage right winger from Presidency College, never ate again in his hostel. 

He had invitations across town. For the next three years," goes the piece penned by Rohit Brijnath. 

'India Today' further said - Times change, invitations cease, worship disappears. For, so have icons. Most of the poets, painters, filmmakers, scientists, writers had gone, too many pedestals lay vacant, so much passion stored in the closet.

"In a larger context, Bengal, once the heart of India - politically the capital, culturally the centre - had been banished, some assumed, into insignificance. Ganguly, cricket bat in hand (and nowadays a cricket ball too), mouthing the words, "I am representing India from Bengal", is seen as altering some of those assumptions."  

Returning home from Pakistan on a Delhi-Calcutta flight, bedlam occurs: handwringing, autographs and passengers who every two minutes tell him: "You have put Bengal on the world map." L.P. Sahi, sports editor, The Telegraph, Calcutta, offers another tale.

1996 in Toronto, Ganguly was dropped for a match and The Telegraph carried a back page sports story. By lunch the phones are clogged by infuriated readers saying, "What is this, Bengal has been insulted." Next day, Sahi writes a front page story on the controversy and now says, 

"We realised that you can’t treat him like everyone else."

Ganguly, to the extravagant Bengali, is perfect. 

But when it comes to politics - some imperfection is bound to follow. 

Sourav Ganguly was embroiled in controversies regarding West Bengal politics and elections.

Most recently, rumors alleged Ganguly acted as an intermediary for Mamata Banerjee, asking MP Yusuf Pathan to resign from his Baharampur Lok Sabha seat so she could contest a by-election. 

Ganguly strongly dismissed these reports as completely false and baseless.

Earlier during the 2026 Assembly elections, he faced intense social media backlash after a meeting with BJP's P N Pathak, but simultaneously angered political camps by refusing to predict election outcomes, famously stating that "even Maa Durga cannot predict" the results.

ends