On the occasion of Teacher's Day, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly on Monday put out a tweet that became viral almost instantaneously. In the tweet, Ganguly mentioned some of the most renowned coaches he has played under, including Greg Chappell with whom the former India captain had an infamous fallout in 2005. However, Ganguly made, what we think, a minor error in the tweet, which he later had to fix.
In his original tweet, Ganguly had written: "Major missing Debo Mitra, John Wright, Gary Kirsten and my favourite one, Greg. Happy Teacher's Day". The tweet caught the public eye soon enough, after which Ganguly deleted it and reposted it with a small tweak, which stated, Major missing Debo Mitra, John Wright, my favourite one, Gary Kirsten and Greg. Happy Teachers' Day!". Clearly, Ganguly had placed the term 'my favourite one' before the wrong coach and changed it immediately to mention Wright.
"There are few moments in life that make you relive your past, here's to my failures & bouncing back," he added. However, the world of Twitter could not stay calm as Ganguly's edit triggered a meme-fest and a string of reactions on the social media platform.
Mitra, a former Bengal cricketer, was coach of the Bengal as well as India Under-19 side, under whom Ganguly played during his formative years. With Wright, Ganguly enjoyed the most successful association as the two led Indian cricket to greater heights in the early 2000s. With the Wright-Ganguly combination, India beat Australia in the 2001 home Test series 2-1, won the 2002 Natwest Trophy, Champions Trophy, reached the final of the 2003 World Cup and won a Test and ODI series in Pakistan. These were some of Indian cricket's finest performances of all time.
{{/usCountry}}Mitra, a former Bengal cricketer, was coach of the Bengal as well as India Under-19 side, under whom Ganguly played during his formative years. With Wright, Ganguly enjoyed the most successful association as the two led Indian cricket to greater heights in the early 2000s. With the Wright-Ganguly combination, India beat Australia in the 2001 home Test series 2-1, won the 2002 Natwest Trophy, Champions Trophy, reached the final of the 2003 World Cup and won a Test and ODI series in Pakistan. These were some of Indian cricket's finest performances of all time.
{{/usCountry}}Ganguly's next mention, Kirsten, wasn't someone he played a lot under. Kirsten took over as India coach in March 2008, so the Ganguly-Kirsten alliance only lasted eight months as in November of the same year, Ganguly retired from international cricket. Kirsten would go to lead India to the 2011 World Cup along with former captain MS Dhoni.
And then there was Chappell, whose saga in Indian cricket would go down as one of its most notorious chapters. Besides his strained relations with Ganguly, several other players did not see eye to eye with Chappell and his style of coaching with the likes of Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh, and even Sachin Tendulkar narrating incidents of the Australian great's conduct. His tenure as head coach ended with India's dismal performance in the 2007 World Cup.