Just when you begin to think you have seen everything he has to offer, Sourav Ganguly continues to surprise. It took one of Indian cricket’s most colourful characters 99 Tests to bring up his first Test double hundred; the wait was well worth it as the 34-year-old touched 200 at the Chinnaswamy stadium on Sunday.

In some distant corner, one man will feel truly vindicated. The much-maligned Greg Chappell can allow himself a quiet chuckle or three, because every international run flowing off Ganguly’s willow is a victory of sorts for the former Indian coach.

Chappell is quite an unacceptable word in Indian cricket these days. The man who was hailed as a messiah when he arrived to take charge of Indian cricket some two and a half years back left the country a villain this April. In the beginning, he could do no wrong, not even when he took on a firmly entrenched Ganguly on cricketing issues. At the very bitter end, the one-time Australian captain could do no right.

Triumphant return
To credit Chappell alone with Ganguly's outstanding recent run would be doing the Kolkatan a grave disservice. After all, it is the former captain who has cocked a snook at his many detractors, returning triumphantly to the Test side in South Africa last December after ten months in the wilderness, and immediately showcasing an improved work ethic and approach.

Chappell had suggested that Ganguly could prolong his international career and rediscover his batting brilliance only if he shed the cares of captaincy. Ganguly considered it an affront to be asked to abdicate a throne he had occupied with great success for nearly five years. Not long after his open confrontation with Chappell, Ganguly first lost the captaincy, then his place in the national team.

Ganguly was left with two options — go back to the 'nets,' iron out his batting and return full of beans, or pack it all up, put his cricketing gear away and get on with it. A battler all his life, this was one fight Ganguly didn’t want to lose.

The Kolkatan will be the first to admit that repeated batting failures by those in South Africa, rather than any great run of scores by him in domestic cricket, hastened his international return. Once he took his place in the Test eleven, Ganguly Mark II came to the party in grand fashion.

Without embracing the extraordinary, he did more than enough in South Africa to suggest that he belonged at this level all over again. Time away from the game did Ganguly a world of good, allowing him to introspect, get his priorities right, and convince himself that the fire and passion for international cricket was intact.

Crucial knocks
Ganguly has since gone from strength to strength. He played crucial knocks during India’s 1-0 triumph in England in the Tests, and has made a glorious re-entry into the one-day side as well, a dwindling limited-overs strike rate the only blip in an otherwise incredible journey back.

More than the fact that he has scored 1031 runs in 11 Tests at 57.3 per innings from South Africa till now, or that he has made back-to-back hundreds in Tests for the first time since his debut in 1996, it’s the vibes he has given off that stands out. Ganguly will never be electric heels or the perfect athlete but these days, he doesn’t stop trying. Having made his peace with himself, as much as anyone else, he is a more relaxed individual, having emphatically buried the demons of the past.

Despite not being the captain anymore, Ganguly continues to be an active participant in on-field discussions. His attempt to shield an out-of-runs Dinesh Kaarthick in Saturday’s last over was the ultimate indication that he is thinking beyond himself. Ganguly the skipper reaped the benefits of Anil Kumble’s leg-spin during his long, successful reign. The man they call Dada perhaps feels it is time to return the compliment!