Originally published in Desicritics here.

I caught up with Saurav Ganguly, former Indian captain in Calcutta. In the interview, he disclosed that he is retiring from the game. The following are the excerpts from the interview:

Pratyush: When you made your test debut at Lords, every one had written you off.

Saurav Ganguly: Yes. It had also been said that I refused to carry drinks in Australia in 1991-92. It is very easy to write off any one. I have always believed to focus on the task at hand rather than what others have to say. In 1996, I had one inning to prove myself. Had I not score the century, I would most likely have been dropped soon after. I am glad how it panned out.

P: It has been a tremendous career. World Cup final, test series win versus Australia and victory away in Pakistan. Among all these what according to you is your biggest contribution to Indian cricket?

SG: If I had to pinpoint just one thing it would be ‘change of attitude’. From a team which accepted what it got, we transformed into one which would give it back to the opponents. On the field, we tried to make things happen rather than just wait for things to happen by themselves. Losing the World Cup Final is obviously a big disappointment but it took tremendous effort to reach there in the first place. India started winning matches abroad and not just at home. We won tests in Australia, England, West Indies and Zimbabwe. We had to wait for a series win till the Pakistan series. By then it was a question of when and not if we would win a series abroad.

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