Ganguly, the Bastman

This is something I wrote when Ganguly retired. I found that most articles only dealt with his attitude, his captaincy, his leadership; about Ganguly the Man or Dada or the Prince of Calcutta. This is about Ganguly the Bastman, Saurav Ganguly, offside guru.
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It was early days of ESPN in Manipal, and the programming wasn't that India-centric. India were playing this tour game against one of the counties, and an unknown left-handed all-rounder walked in to bat. Hardly ten balls into his innings, he unleashed two cover drives that seemed too good to be from a newcomer. I was waiting for a third one when the match was stopped suddenly, and the action shifted to a Premier League game. Clearly, the English ESPN watchers were concerned with other off-sides. But back home, there was a fan in the making. India lost the first Test badly, I was disappointed. An injury to Manjrekar, and Sidhu's departure in anger meant that Ganguly and Dravid found themselves making their debut at Lord's. The off-side play he unleashed on that day, and in his 136 at Trent Bridge in the next test, remain as vivid images from my childhood (I watched the latter on TV just yesterday - such effortless class!).

Ganguly's batting wasn't all about the off-side - his huge sixes over long-on off any spinner, and his funny tucks for singles and twos on the on-side were as crucial to his survival and success. When he first burst on to the scene, he even played some awkward pull shots - they weren't great to watch, but they were effective. But his off-side play was so refined, so precise, that everything else he did was obscured in its shadow. It was a glorious sight - the area between cover and point would be as thickly populated as a railway station, and the ball would still find a way through. As recently as the Mohali Test Match, Ganguly toyed with Ponting as he laced three boundaries through seven men on the off-side. Ponting reacted by posting deep-point. Ganguly still found a boundary.

Another aspect of his batting that always stunned me was the fact that he never hit the ball harder than it needed to be hit. Unlike Gilchrist or Jayasuriya, Ganguly's drives and cuts weren't of the ferocious variety, he never seemed to hit the ball very hard, but it reached the fence as quickly as theirs. He never looked as strong as Afridi or Flintoff, but could hit the ball as far.

It was in the one-dayers that Ganguly's batting found full expression. He stands, and will continue to stand, as one of the greatest one-day batsmen of all time. The sheer volume of runs and centuries at that average and against all kinds of attacks in all sorts of venues is hard to ignore. He was a master of batting in the middle overs once he got a start. His push to thirdman for single wasn't the most beautiful or complicated shot he executed, but it was the backbone of his batting. He could push almost any ball there at will and get off strike. And heaven help the team that found itself at the receiving end of his late onslaughts.

Age slowed him down, and his precise off-side play lost their sheen. Teams were able to plug his point-to-extra-cover stronghold, bowl into his ribs and get him caught at short fine or square leg. When they did give him something outside the offstump, he would eagerly poke and find the ball safely in second slip's hands. His Dada personality and his ebullient leadership kept him going until Chappell struck.
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I admired Ganguly's comeback batting, but I didn't enjoy watching it as much. He returned steelier and tighter. His pull, awkward as it was, was back. Not as afraid of the bouncer anymore, he wasn't over-enthusiastic about balls outside his off. Yes, he never timed the ball as well as he used to, his sixes off the spinners weren't as long or consistent as they used to be. Hell, he was even troubled by Brad Hogg on that tour of Australia. Yet, there was a princeliness to his batting. It didn't come from an air of authority in his shot-making, but from assuredness. He could score quickly and damagingly when he wanted to, like in that game against South Africa in Kanpur on a minefield, or those two innings in the controversial Sydney Test (remember that contentious catch by Clarke in the second innings?); but he played stodgy stockpiling innings when the match demanded - a couple of innings on that tour of England and that Test century against Australia in Mohali in his final series.

When I watch him grapple in the IPL with T20 runrates and batting amidst the weakest batting line-up in the tournament, I wonder what he would've been if T20 had been around 10 years ago. Amongst current cricketers, Gambhir gives us a clue - Gambhir is also strong square on the offside (although not as strong), he steps down the wicket against spinners (he is more assured than Ganguly against them), he dabs to thirdman for a single with alarming ease and regularity (just like Ganguly used to) and he can launch into calculated, inimical attacks in the later overs. Ganguly would have been as effective, if not more effective than Gambhir. And Sachin would've been the world's best. Now there's a T20 opening pair that would give India'scurrent pair a run for their money.

Ganguly, in his comeback years was a master of making best use of his fading natural abilities. He recognised that he wasn't as quick, and that his timing wasn't as good. He worked around it. He recognised that after a decade on the scene, bowlers knew exactly where and how to bowl to him. He worked on those lines of attack. He recognised his role in the batting line-up better. He had a point to prove, and he proved it. His retirement announcement was like his cover drive - it comes off a lazy flourish of the bat innocuously, but before you can react, its disappeared into the fence.