"Be bull-headed and I guarantee you will succeed." That is how Sourav Ganguly ended his session in a digital classroom on Saturday. It was in the same vein of optimism that he said cricket will return to pre-pandemic normality by year-end.
"Things will be back on track. The world has been caught in sheer shock because we did not have the medicine to deal with it. But in six-seven months, once the vaccine is available, everything will be normal," said the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president.
"BCCI and ICC (International Cricket Council) are hell bent on getting cricket back. There will be some changes in the interim; itineraries will change. There will be tests for players, medical exams, but it won't come in the way of cricket."
Ganguly said he became a cricketer by accident. "I loved flying kites but football was my life and I was good at it." Diego Maradona is an idol he would travel any distance to meet. "But during a summer vacation, my father told me 'go for cricket training' because I was up to mischief. I liked it because it meant getting away from all the discipline at home," said Ganguly, a fan of former England left-hander David Gower's batting.
Ganguly said he rated success as India captain ahead of achievements as a player. "Few teams have had as many players as we did who went on to play 100 Tests." Captaincy can never be about "my way or the highway because you can't get Yuvraj Singh to be like Rahul Dravid." Ganguly said growing up in a joint family helped him be accommodating.
Going shirtless at Lord's in 2002 was "my way of demanding that the world respect this team." It was also at Lord's that Ganguly was in his best frame of mind. "That was on my Test debut (he scored 131). I was fearless in a way I could never reproduce afterwards. I had to prove to myself and the world that I could bat for hours for India," he said.
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