As they shook hands, ears perked up all around the wire mesh, struggling to catch the few words that were exchanged. “He said, Welcome back, mate.” “No, he asked is it good to be back.” “I don’t think so.” Chappell smiled, Ganguly, too, a quick handshake and it was down to cricket.

But wait, look who’s charging up to bowl the first ball. It’s Ian Nicholson, former Zimbabwe A pacer, who had bowled to the left-hander at the nets “two-three days before” the Harare Test of September 2005_Ganguly’s last as India captain.

Today, he’s there at the nets again, bowling to Ganguly, the batsman. “He is batting just the same, I couldn’t spot any difference,” Nicholson told this newspaper, bewildered by all the fuss. The 20-year-old bowled just one ball to the 33-year-old, jet-lagged, tired, but determined, as he has been throughout that stormy career of 88 Tests, 12 hundreds. It was a bouncer Dada ducked, emerged unscathed.

“He will make a difference. He’s got experience, good leadership, and he’s played in South Africa before. This time, he will have the players behind him. And if he and Greg Chappell can sort out their differences, it won’t do any harm to Indian cricket,” former South African captain Kepler Wesels told The Indian Express from Johannesburg.

Wessels should know. He was director of cricket this season at Northamptonshire, where Ganguly had vanished this June _to work on his comeback. “He is determined to play. He has got money, everything, so that’s not a factor. He wants to play for India and he wants to play the World Cup in the end,” says Wessels.

... contd.