It was when Greg Chappell arrived to coach the Indian cricket team that Sourav Ganguly found Indian national team’s captaincy being taken away from him. While the rest of his career, Ganguly played under the leadership of Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble and even MS Dhoni, there was a brief moment for which he did get the big responsibility back.
It was his final Test in Nagpur in 2008 against Australia when Dhoni decided to handover the captaincy responsibility to one of the finest skippers that the Indian cricket had ever seen. Speaking to Mayank Agarwal in a video shared by the BCCI on social media, Ganguly admitted that doesn’t quite remember what he did in those 3-4 overs but was quite surprised to see that gesture by Dhoni.
Ganguly received a guard of honour as he walked out on the pitch wearing the Indian jersey for the final time. Narrating his experience in the retirement game to Agarwal in the chat show ‘Open Nets with Mayank’, Dada recalled the memories of his final Test.
“My last Test match in Nagpur. It was the last day, last session. I was walking down the steps at the Vidarbha Stadium. They (my teammates) stood beside me and allowed me to enter the ground,” Ganguly said.
Only a few overs were left in the match when Dhoni decided to give the captaincy baton to Ganguly and let him bow out of the game as the skipper.
“That (handing over captaincy) was a bit of a surprise. I didn’t expect it. But MS Dhoni being MS Dhoni, he is full of surprises like his captaincy. We were winning the Test match and my mind was on retirement. I don’t know what I did for those 3, 4 overs,” Ganguly said.
