Sourav Ganguly, the captain of India’s cricket team, was so worried about a prank that he was actually ready to give up his captaincy. Seriously. This whole wild scene unfolded back on April Fool’s Day in 2005, right before a high-stakes one-day series against rivals Pakistan was set to kick off in Kochi. The pressure was already cranked way up for that series, but some of his own guys decided to add a whole new level of chaos.
The Fake News That Sent Dada Reeling
It all started with Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh cooking up a scheme that went a little too far. They rolled into the dressing room with these totally convincing fake newspaper clippings. And what were these fake articles saying? That Ganguly had supposedly blasted his own teammates, calling them “party animals,” “irresponsible,” and “distant.” Can you even imagine the nerve? Harbhajan later recalled the whole squad was sitting there when Yuvi dropped the bomb, like, “Dada, what is this statement that you have given to the press?” He specifically called out Yuvi as a party animal, said Harbhajan didn’t care about anyone, Ashish Nehra was “in his own world,” and Zaheer Khan was also partying too much. Ganguly was absolutely confused. “When did I say this?” he asked, and that’s when they slapped the fake clippings down in front of him, asking him, “What is this?”
Senior Players Join The Scheme, Raising The Stakes
The prank then got a huge boost from two of the team’s absolute legends, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, who were apparently clued into the whole setup. Harbhajan had already spoken to them, saying, “Paaji, you tell him.” And Tendulkar played along perfectly, telling Ganguly, “Dada, if you have done this, this is wrong.” Then Rahul Dravid jumped in too, hitting him with the classic, “Dada, this is not done, yaar.” When two senior players were saying stuff like that, Ganguly was convinced it was all real. He was so distraught he swore, “I swear, I didn’t do this. I’ll give up the captaincy if (it’s proved that) I did this.” That’s how close he was to walking away from leading the squad! The pranksters even took things up a notch, with Harbhajan and a couple of other players grabbing their bags and pretending to walk out of the dressing room. Ganguly actually ran after them, yelling, “Arre yaar, wait, guys! The match is tomorrow. What are you people doing?”
Finally, one of the players broke character and laughed, bringing the whole thing crashing down. Harbhajan admitted that while it was funny at the time, they later felt bad for putting “this decent man through it.” He even said that if it had been a different captain, they would have genuinely been told to “get out of here and go home.” But Ganguly, he was “like a big brother” to them all. It really just goes to show you the kind of genuine leader he was, someone who cared deeply about his team, even when they were pulling the wildest stunts.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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