India’s test match against Australia in November 2008 at Nagpur was a momentous occasion for Indian cricket. It was the day when former skipper Sourav Ganguly made his final international appearance for India. Ganguly had announced before the match that it would be his final game for the country. But the big moment in the match came when Ganguly stepped out on to the field on the final day of the game. India were in a commanding position in the match by Lunch as Australia had lost three wickets and still needed 271 more to win. As Ganguly came out on the field, the Indian team gave him a ‘Guard of Honour’ and welcomed him to the ground.
Speaking to Indian opener Mayank Agarwal in the latest episode of ‘Open Nets with Mayank’ Dada remembered his final test. The conversation was uploaded on BCCI’s twitter handle.
In one of the segments of the interview, Mayank was showing Ganguly some photos from his career, and was asking him to recognise when that particular event took place. Ganguly was quick to recognise the photo which featured the Indian team giving him the guard of honour as he was entering the field.
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“My last Test match in Nagpur. It was the last day, last session. I was walking down the steps at the Vidarbha Stadium. They (my teammates) stood beside me and allowed me to enter the ground,” Ganguly said.
Mayank then went on to ask Dada about the moment where MS Dhoni handed him the armband for his final test. Recalling the same, Ganguly added that he did not expect that special gesture.
“That (handing over captaincy) was a bit of a surprise. I didn’t expect it. But MS Dhoni being MS Dhoni, he is full of surprises like his captaincy. We were winning the Test match and my mind was on retirement. I don’t know what I did for those 3, 4 overs,” Ganguly said.
In his final test, India demonstrated intense resolve to beat Australia convincingly by 172 runs to bring down the curtains on the career of a legend.
