People who have long known Sourav Ganguly more intimately than loyal hacks claiming improbable proximity to him concede that he loves to be everything that is indicative of a special position ~ simultaneously, if possible.
They say that well might he, cricket board chief in a disputatiously prolonged tenure, nurture a secret wish to coach India to a World Cup triumph. He could also harbour ambitions of leading global cricket relishing the same authoritative status as Jagmohan Dalmiya, his mentor.
It is his multi-faceted exploration of life – can you think of another Indian cricket supremo who hawked so many products on television or a peer of Ganguly the administrator revelling in his role as the USP of a reality show? ~ which adds a special dimension to the currently widespread speculation about his becoming West Bengal’s Bharatiya Janata Party chief minister after the 2021 elections.
A mugshot and a tantalising headline ensure page-one prominence for any bilge predicated on the continuing, amazing popularity of a cricketer who played his last innings years ago. Coffee House chats revolve around his calculatedly anodyne comments. Reactions from leaders ~ puny or titanic ~ to those nuggets of celebspeak fuel more putatively political copy, adding considerably to West Bengal’s ill-concealed and massive pride in itself.
Neither Sunil Gavaskar nor Sachin Tendulkar is thought so seriously of in Mumbai. Rahul Dravid, similarly scrutinised, will feel too embarrassed to talk. Ganguly apparently does not mind being hero-worshipped in his own domain.
And if an administrative partnership with Jay Shah in the Board of Control for Cricket in India hints at a BJP link, tenuous or cast-iron, leading to conjectures about an impending political fixture, staying in the headlines is a bit of all right. It adds a fresh lease of life to the Ganguly legend. Also, if he is wanted by a poll-anticipating outfit to give it a leg up and there is something in the deal for him, how can it be anything other than a gift-wrapped offering?
But Ganguly, it is said, thinks of everything. He has not cut Asoke Bhattacharjee ~ still jokingly referred to as the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s erstwhile minister for Dada ~ out of his life just because the Left Front is out of power.
Purportedly close to the current power-wielders in New Delhi, it is not as if, say self-appointed courtiers of his cricketing empire, he has drifted away from Mamata Banerjee, who engineered his ascent to the to the top of the pecking order in Dr BC Roy Clubhouse.
Also, Ms Banerjee knew in advance of Ganguly’s visit to Raj Bhavan. “I don’t think he’ll join the BJP given that it’s going to be extremely hard for him to bypass Didi,” says a Cricket Association of Bengal insider.
Ganguly, though, is not to be taken for granted. Clarity, it is said, is likely to be elusive until January’s Supreme Court hearing of the case of his BCCI tenure. But once the legal verdict comes through, his decision will have to be irrevocable. There is no getting away from that.