BCCI President talks about his lockdown experience, early days in cricket and keeping in touch with friends
Sourav Ganguly during his younger days. Pic/ mid-day archives
Following many Bollywood celebs, former Indian cricketer and BCCI President Sourav Ganguly was among the guest list on Neha Dhupia's chat show, No Filter Neha Season 5 on JioSaavn.
Talking about his lockdown experience, Sourav Ganguly said that Kolkata has opened up and he has been going to the office as well as doing commercials and shoots. Ganglu said, "It's been too long, isn't it? But, we've opened up. Calcutta has opened up. So, it’s not been lockdown for me since maybe, June. I've started going to the office. I'm at the office at the moment and I've started shooting. I do my shoots, my commercials, I had to finish my show. So, I did that last month and BCCI work is regular because we are hosting the IPL in Dubai so its not been a lockdown that much since the month of June. Yes, we were careful. Travelling has not been at all a part of our lives as it was before. I used to be in Bombay every week. Ya, the BCCI office trying to get cricket going and working and everything, so. It’s been different. More than the lockdown, I think, the situation has been very difficult to handle, mentally. Trying to live with fear, you never experience when you met someone, the first thing which comes to your mind is he tested, is he okay, hope he is not going to infect you. So, that's not the right way to lead life but hopefully, this will pass. We've gone through it for 5 and half months now and at some stage, I think somehow we are used to it now, expecting it to pass and then hopefully get back to normal in the next couple of months or 3-4 months, we don't know."
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Sourav Ganguly has been making the most of his time during the COVID-19 lockdown but has he been catching up with his buddies during quarantine? "Not catching up but, maybe SMS. I just had a call from Yuvraj Singh, day before yesterday. He wants to play cricket, again. But yes, I've been in touch on and off with everyone. In Bombay, its a bit different because you have 4 or 5 or 6 of them in same city. That makes life a lot easier. But, from Calcutta, I think I am the only one. So, it’s either on phone or hello, or a tweet or an Instagram post and then having a laugh on it. Those were great days actually," said Ganguly.
Sourav Ganguly also went on to track back to his early days in cricket and reminisces about how he started playing the game, "No, no. There was no resistance. My father was desperate that I played the game. So, when I just passed out of school, he put me in an academy where I used to practice. Nothing in mind, just go and practice, and hit the ball and get away from home because those days, there were no computers, no mobiles so if you were not doing anything at home, mother wanted you to study. So, to get away from those big piles of books, cricket bat was a better option so you would go away in the afternoon, practice for three hours, meet your friends for two hours and five hours would be gone. So, it kept you away from home, kept you away from your parents’ discipline. So, that's how it started at a young age. I just kept playing. I used to play Soccer quite a bit. Calcutta being a football crazy city in those days, still is. But, cricket has taken over I think. Life was a lot fun because you were not restricted by television, not restricted by mobiles. So, that's how I started playing the game."
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