Sourav Ganguly is perhaps the greatest captain Indian captain of all time. Ganguly took over the reins of captaincy during a very difficult time in India cricket. Ganguly was respected by every member of the Indian squad, as he shared a great bond with everyone. But what happened when his teammates decided to play a prank on the then Indian skipper.
Ganguly revealed an incident when Harbhajan Singh, Sachin Tendulkar and the rest of the Indian team played an ‘April Fools’ prank on him. This took place at a time when Ganguly was struggling for form and unable to score runs. His teammates decided to clam their skipper down during a time when he wasn’t scoring many runs. The members of the Indian team pretended to be upset by Ganguly’s statements in the media.
When a prank helped Sourav Ganguly regain form?
“I was a little disappointed because I wasn’t scoring runs. As I entered the dressing room, the team members got together led by Sachin and Harbhajan Singh were saying that they are very disappointed with what I said about the team in the media. I said, what did I say? I was very sensitive at the time. They said that there were reports in the newspapers that you were not happy with the way the team has played,” Ganguly said during an interaction for Unacademy, as quoted by IANS.
Ganguly was clearly surprised by all the things that were said to him and even offered to resign from the captaincy. When the situation got out of hand his teammates told him it was just an ‘April Fools’ prank. This, however, helped Ganguly as he went on to regain his form back and scored runs against Pakistan.
“I said if you guys feel that I will get upset about the team not playing well and I did something wrong, I am ready to resign today and I am ready for somebody else to take the captaincy. I said that and went and sat on my chair. A couple of minutes went away and I saw everybody jumping with laughter. I was really upset then and a little bit shocked at what I had just heard from the team. And then Harbhajan jumped up and said April Fool,” Ganguly said.
“That I think worked well for me because I went and played well in the series. It just showed me how much my players cared. I wasn’t scoring runs and they wanted me to feel good and believe that they will be there for me in my difficult times. It really opened me up,” he concluded.