Ganguly fires in Nagpur, Kolkata reverberates in joy

Kolkata, Jan 21 (UNI) Kolkata blew hot and cold throughout the day as Sourav Ganguly made a majestic return to the ODIs and Neo Sports blanked out of the television sets for most of the day.

Ganguly made a hero's return to the shorter format of the game scoring 98 against the West Indies, before a brilliant work in the field from Smith left him inches short of his 23rd ton.

While there was jubilation at his elegant return, there was disgust and anger as Neo Sports was not available to most of the viewers throughout the day.

Kolkata has some six major cable distributors, who were unwilling to show the channel at an 'allegedly' high subscription rate. While that meant other than those who had CAS service were not able to see Neo, and that number was motley, it also meant angry protests and repeated scenes of agitation before the cable operators' offices.

The channel did flicker back to life with some cable operators for a short period when Ganguly was going ballistic. And the city had its eye-balls glued to the TV sets as if suddenly by some hypnotic effect the world had come to a standstill.

Equally great was the pain of losing their hero, who got out two shy of another ton.

But the love and joy of seeing the 'Prince of Kolkata' was so high that it wiped away in its rush the anger of not being able to view the entire match as the city celebrated.

Raju Mukherjee, former Bengal captain, said, '' There is no alternative than making him the captain of the Indian team. He is just brilliant. '' Devang Gandhi, Ganguly's Ranji teammate, said, '' He has always been extraordinary as an opener in the shorter version of the game.

Once again he showed today why he is considered so good. '' ''He also showed what a good start can do to the morale of the team, '' he added.

Meanwhile, people came out with placards and posters chanting 'dada dada' as a mad euphoria took over. Big posters of Sourav Ganguly with garlands on them from his fans, showed how eagerly the city waited to see the silken drives on the off-side and the sight of stepping out and hitting the ball into the galleries.

UNI