Give the achievers their dues...

2005 season was not a good season for most of the heroes. Be it Sachin, Ganguly or Michel Schumacher - they equally suffered. But most of the impact was taken by Ganguly in 2006. When i dont find his name in the Cricket India squad, somehow a sign of disasppointment grips into my mind. Not because, i am a great follower of him or not because i am a serious watcher of the game, but because he was a warrior of this age. He demanded more and because he demanded more he was also loathed more. I remembered an article about him written by Mr. Nirmal Shekar in 'The Hindu' during the 2003 World Cup. The contents can be read from the URL : http://www.hinduonnet.com/2003/03/15/stories/2003031500912000.htm

I am also pasting the contents for my own quick reference.

Few days back during the San Marino GP, i heard that it is a win or die situation for MS or schumi, as he is fondly called by everyone. He did not perform well and he did not win even a single full house GP last year [other than the podium finish in Indiapolis when he competed with only the other bridgestone and less competent F1 drivers]. But, he should be allowed to sign off from the game in honor and not by just terminating his contract based on his bad performance. I had the opportunity to go to Bahrain GP 2006. Though visually, the Renaults Blue - Yellow jerseys were dominant, the crowd was frantic to call out Schumi. I myself experienced the Schumi wave. I am not benefitted in any way or i understand that this is not going to stop the three square meals of schumi, but all i wanted to emphasis, give the great time achievers their due respect.

Quick Reference: Give Ganguly his due [Source hinduonnet.com]
The question has to be asked now because victory and defeat on a big stage — and it doesn't get bigger than the World Cup semifinals and final — have a way of clouding our perceptions, especially in their immediate aftermath.
And it is a simple question: Is Sourav Ganguly the best captain Indian cricket has ever had?
Sounds like a survey question? Who will make a better Prime Minister? Atal Behari Vajpayee or Sonia Gandhi?
Not really. There is not going to be any voting on the issue. But, no matter what happens a few days from now, when India plays the semifinal match and then, possibly, the final on March 23, this is perhaps the right time to ponder the Ganguly question.
As the leader of the country's most celebrated team — one whose members are more easily recognised around the country than the ones on Vajpayee's Cabinet, and probably considerably wealthier too than the Union Ministers — Ganguly is distinctly a one-off.
Indian cricket has never had a captain who has been quite as equally loved and loathed as Ganguly has been in his time in the hottest seat in Indian sport.
He is a man we love to love. Equally, he is a man we love to hate. We give him more than his due sometimes. At other times we fail to give him what he deserves. We show him an understanding and kindness he has not always deserved. And, not much later, we shoot from the hip and start baying for his blood when he is not at all at fault.
Ganguly is that kind of man. His very personality triggers those extreme reactions in us. He is hero and he is villain. He is the saviour of Indian cricket and the destroyer of the country's one secular religion. He is a confident, all-conquering Prince and a sulking, foul-mouthed non-performer. He is a great visionary and a fumbling, short-sighted failure as a leader.
Actually, depending on where you stand and what the team has done over the years — swinging merrily from outrageous brilliance to soul-numbing banality — there is not much that Sourav Ganguly has not been.
If everything that has been said of Ganguly were true, then his personality profile would be a fascinating case-study for students of psychology and psychiatry!
Indeed, few Indian sportsmen — not just cricketers — may have ever pushed fans and critics alike to such emotional extremes as has the Prince of Kolkata who has come a long way since the days when, on his first tour of Australia, he seemed a painfully shy and introverted young man.
From a lonely little boy-man who answered in monosyllables to a captain with attitude who launches into a tirade against Stephen Fleming for attempting to belittle the competence of his team is the sort of transformation that few athletes might have managed in the world of sport.
But, then, inside all of us is a person waiting to jump out and make his mark. Given the opportunity, Ganguly the confident conqueror, was always likely to emerge. That he has, at this point in time, is quite appropriate too.
For the Ganguly we see today, on and off the field, is very much a product of the times. Indian cricket could never have had a Ganguly in the 1950s or 1960s or even in the 1980s. Can you imagine the Nawab of Pataudi Jr. sporting the sort of attitude that Ganguly wears like his favourite hat? Can you imagine that real Prince of Indian cricket making Garfield Sobers wait in the middle for the toss in a game of psychological one-upmanship?
Those were different days. And Pataudi was a different kind of man. Born to privilege he may have been, like Ganguly, but he had one leg on the village greens of England, so to say, and his attitudes were honed in the stately halls of Cambridge five decades ago rather than in the maidans of Kolkata in the 1990s.Other long-reigning Indian captains, men such as Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and Mohammed Azharuddin, all did the best they could but none of them ever managed to impose their personality on the team like Ganguly has done so successfully.
In many ways, this is Ganguly's team first. The Indian team next. And that is not a bad thing altogether, given the results.
A bit of a prima donna who has convinced himself that he is God's gift to Indian cricket, Ganguly struts about with the supreme confidence that comes with that sort of belief. Not surprisingly, the confidence rubs off on his mates.
It's the dominant attitude of the era we live in. And this is precisely why a Ganguly could not have happened on the scene at any time in the past.
This the new India, sure of its place on the planet, sure of where it is headed, sure of its ability to hold its own at the global level, sure in its mind that all the post-colonial hangovers have been wiped out.
And Ganguly is an appropriate leader for the new millennium — cocky, self-assured, giving as good as he is getting, leading like a man born to lead, winning like one born to win. And he is a lucky leader too, for when everything seems lost for him and his team, things turn around almost magically time and again.
Much of that luck has to do with the fact that it is he, and not Pataudi or Gavaskar or Kapil, who has had the good fortune to hold the reins when Sachin Tendulkar is at his peak.
What is more, from a team perspective too, he seems to have done all the right things. He has taken talented young men under his wings, trusted his instincts and backed them — Yuvraj, Nehra, you name them — and finally demanded, and got, superlative performances from them. If, now, he is the Dada of all he surveys, then Ganguly deserves it. He is not my favourite cricketer and he insulted a gladiatorial hero — Steve Waugh — but that is not the point, really.
For, we have to give the devil its due.