Kolkata celebrates as Sourav Ganguly returns to form in ODI

Kolkata, Jan 21 : DADA is back !! Kolkata celebrated as Sourav Ganguly made a majestic return to one-day international cricket Sunday, leading India to victory over the West Indies at Nagpur.

Ganguly made a hero’s return scoring 98 before he was run out - inches short of his 23rd ton.

Die-hard Sourav fans in this hometown of the former skipper came out on streets with placards and posters chanting ‘dada, dada’.

Huge garlanded posters of Sourav were flaunted by the fans as city cricketers once again demanded that he be reinstated as captain.

Former Bengal captain Raju Mukherjee said: “There is no other alternative than to make him 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.

However, cricket buffs here were also angry, as Neo Sports, the private channel that telecast the game, was not available to most viewers throughout the day.

Kolkata has some six major cable TV distributors who were unwilling to show the channel at an allegedly high subscription rate.

Thus, other than a small number of those with the CAS service, people were not able to see their favourite player’s comeback game. There were angry protests and agitations before the cable operators’ offices.

The channel did flicker back to life with some cable operators for a short period when Sourav was going ballistic. And the city had itself glued to the TV sets even as the fans mourned the two runs that left him short of a century.

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