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 You
know what happened with Sourav Ganguly and Jagmohan
Dalmia. But behind the story that dominated headlines
last month are many juicier rumours that have been floating
around. For instance, did the former BCCI chief and
Dalmiya bete noire, IS Bindra, meet Ganguly in England
a week before the former Indian captain's recent email
missile against his former godfather? Was he also promised
a farewell series?
What was not surprising, though, was the fact that Ganguly
chose the convoluted and murky method of sending an
email to his brother and then have him leak it to the
press as his way of telling the world that he is not
with Dalmiya anymore. The irony is that the current
email seems to imply a change of thinking on Ganguly's
part on the consequences of the last famous email, the
one which Greg Chappell sent to Dalmia (against the
Indian captain) from Zimbabwe. The talk at that time
was that Dalmia through his cronies, ostensibly with
Ganguly's assent, had leaked the email to bring down
Chappell. The move, of course, backfired. But Ganguly
seems to imply that if Dalmia had not leaked the email,
it would not have destroyed his career. That his terrible
form on the cricket field was primarily responsible
for him being dropped from the team is a different matter.
The bigger irony is the fact that the two highly political
men who batted so well for each other in their quest
for individual glory - one as an administrator and the
other as a captain - should now fall out so badly. It
only lends credence to the view of many a follower of
the game that they needed each other for survival. Dalmia,
without his fellow Kolkatan at the helm of the Indian
cricket team, would have found it very difficult to
hold on to the BCCI, and on the flip side, without Dalmia
at the helm, Ganguly's weakness as a captain and player
would have been exposed in no time. And when the fall
came, it wasn't surprising that both were blown away
from the scene within weeks of each other. But now Ganguly
seems to be willing to do anything, including kick his
already fallen mentor if needed, in a desperate bid
to come back into the Indian team. But his recent poor
performances for Northamptonshire  in
the recent County matches in England seems to have put
paid to that attempt paying any dividend.
Dalmia, of course, underestimated the wiles of an even
bigger politician, Sharad Pawar, when he used questionable
means to keep the Maratha strongman away from the presidency
of BCCI in 2004. Not only did Pawar come back with a
vengeance, but the BCCI under him is also going at Dalmiya
with the kind of determination that was last seen when
George Fernandes went after Tehelka. Whether Dalmia
will weather the storm remains to be seen. But it is
quite clear that he least expected his protégé,
the man for whom he has done so much, to turn against
him. Dalmia's first reaction when he was told about
Ganguly's email was to dismiss it as a forgery. And
Ganguly had to get his brother to issue a statement
to the media saying that it was indeed genuine.
Maybe it would have been easier for Ganguly to fly down
to Kolkata and hold a press conference to tell the world
that Dalmia was responsible for his downfall. But that
would have been too straight a way of doing things.
Now comes the latest twist in the tale. In a bitter
struggle for the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB)
presidency, Dalmia defeated his rival, Kolkata police
commissioner Prasun Mukherjee by a mere 5 votes, thereby
getting a licence to run CAB for the 15th year running.
Even Dalmiya's entire panel came through unscathed,
much to the embarassment of the Sourav Ganguly family
who had publicly backed Mukherjee. How the saga will
play out in the coming weeks and months remains to be
seen.
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