Roy speaks about the post-Twenty20 World Cup days when there was a lot of talk about the fitter juniors pushing the seniors. “He came to me a week before the Pakistan series and told me to restart the same regime that we did when he was out of the team. He said that he had a point to prove. I could see the same intensity in his eyes that he showed when he wanted to make a comeback. He didn’t want people questioning his fitness or fielding,” recalls Roy.

With the Bengal Ranji team too training at the Eden, Ganguly became Roy’s star pupil once again. “Half-an-hour of running around the field, ten sprints of 100 m, running through the ladder and several other drills on field were part of daily routine. This was followed by gym work, where the focus was on the abdomen and back,” he says.

That explains Ganguly’s two-over spell after his more than four sessions of batting. That typically Indian trait of resting in the dressing room after a big score is something Ganguly doesn’t believe in these days.

To achieve these fitness levels there were sacrifices to be made. Roy talks about Ganguly’s unflinching diet discipline, and the biggest of all sacrifice for someone in Kolkata — “Even during Durga Puja he didn’t touch any mishti,” he says with a laugh.

Speaking from Siliguri, where the Bengal Ranji team is playing Orissa, the trainer got in touch with the day’s hero at Chinnaswamy Stadium. “You have proved everybody wrong again” was a simple SMS that Ganguly received from Roy.

... contd.