Sourav Ganguly, one of the successful Captain for team India and a talented batsman as well. Though Ganguly was an inspiration for the youngsters in the team, the team players are very friendly and jovial with their Captain. Knowing one, he’s not the one to bow down to challenges and certainly not the one to let people come in the way of his methods. But once he did.
He did this when the whole Indian team played a prank on him. It was in Kochi when the Indian team are playing with traditional rivals Pakistan in 2005. Ganguly walked into the dressing room for a customary team meeting to discuss strategies before the opener. The players were already present when he got there. But, he was stunned to see pin-drop silence upon his entrance.
He was totally unaware that he would get the shock from his teammates. The leader who is leading the prank was Yuvraj Singh who is well known as a prankster in the dressing room. YV led the team of angry cricketers saying that ‘The Prince Of Calcutta’ had made comments on some of the players in the team.
Meanwhile, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh and Virender Sehwag gave the newspaper which was fabricated by the players to the team manager, Wing Commander M Baladitya, and one to Sourav himself. Harbhajan and Nehra added a dramatic twist and stormed out of the room. To make matter look serious, the sheet of paper given to the team manager was read out.
Claiming innocence, Ganguly even offered to resign from captaincy. He said: ‘I almost had tears in my eyes. These were the same players I had always fought for. I didn’t know why they were suddenly saying all these things.’ He looked pleadingly for some support, but it was just not there. Sourav, in desperation, promised he had never made such statements. Unable to see his desperation, Rahul Dravid opened out ‘it was just an April Fool prank.’
Dada picked up a bat and chased all out of the dressing room. Later he was given another sheet of paper signed by all the team members which read, ‘Dada, we all love you.’ Such unity is the crux of any sporting team in the world, and Dada, a captain loved thoroughly by the players of his team, would remember this not as a day he was fooled, but as a day he came to know how much his teammates loved him.