Sourav Ganguly details the moment when his father asked him to retire

Sourav Ganguly, among many things, is known for his fighting spirit and late comeback in the Indian cricketing circles. He was one of the greatest Indian captains and to a great extent changed the face of their cricket. But the southpaw’s career wasn’t deprived of controversies. He was an open rebellion when Greg Chappell was the Indian head coach.

The bitterness of his relationship with Chappell was public very early. Eventually, Ganguly lost captaincy and also his spot in the team. There was a time when it seemed as if he will never play for India again.  But he churned out the runs in domestic cricket and the selectors had to bring him back. Chappell eventually was sacked from the team and Ganguly retired on a high as well but things haven’t changed since.

There was a point when Dada called up Anil Kumble and asked him what the circumstances around his selection were upfront. “I asked him point-blank, did he think I was no longer an automatic choice in his eleven?”

“Kumble – the gentleman that he has always been – seemed embarrassed with my call. He told me he hadn’t been consulted before the selection committee chaired by Dilip Vengsarkar took this decision,” Ganguly writes in the book, co-authored by Gautam Bhattacharya and published by Juggernaut Books. A preview of the first chapter has been put up on the publisher’s website.

Inclusion in the BP XI

Ahead of the Tests against Australia, he was named in the Board President XI’s squad which meant his performance there will determine if he finds a spot in the Indian team. That was very undermining in Ganguly’s view who had played over 100 Tests for the country. And that is what made him feel that it was the time he took the call.

“I felt extremely agitated. That is when I told my father that I needed to call it a day. Enough was enough. My father was a bit surprised. In the past when Greg Chappell had kept me out of the team and I was desperately fighting to claw my way back, he had wanted me to retire, unable to bear his son’s struggle.

“Then I had resisted. I had told him, Bapi (father), you wait. I will be back. I still have cricket left in me. When I grow older I don’t want to sit on my sofa and tell myself, Sourav, you gave up when the going was tough. You should have tried harder. I wanted to catch the bull by its horns and win,” Ganguly writes.