Prince of Kolkata: Why Sourav Ganguly still rivals Bengal’s biggest movie stars

Dubai: In Kolkata — that heady mix of book fairs, political slogans, and endless cups of cha — heroes are everywhere. Like culturally rich and literate Kerala, the city doesn’t hand out superstardom lightly.

Film idols, political heavyweights, and cultural giants jostle for attention, but ask a Bengali who their ultimate superstar is, and the answer comes quick: Sourav Ganguly.

“Dada” isn’t just a retired cricketer; he’s still the headline act. Even today, his aura rivals, and often eclipses, the hysteria around Bengali cinema’s leading men, whether it’s the evergreen Prosenjit Chatterjee or box-office darling Dev.

So magnetic is his presence that at one point Ganguly was even rumoured to be weighing a leap into politics — the word on the street back then was that he will be taking on Mamata Banerjee and toppling the Trinamool fortress. It never materialised, but the very idea showed the scale of his clout: in Bengal, people genuinely believed Dada could go from Eden Gardens to Nabanna, the state administrative headquarters of West Bengal.

And now, just to keep the legend rolling, the former India captain and ex-BCCI chief is stepping into a new avatar — head coach of the Pretoria Capitals for the next season of SA20. Because in Kolkata, even retirement doesn’t mean an encore is off the cards.

The superstar parallel

For decades, Prosenjit has been Bengal’s matinee idol, while Dev is the poster boy of the current generation. But Ganguly transcends the screen. His presence draws the same whistles and crowd surges usually reserved for movie premières. When he steps out at public events—whether a book launch, a puja inauguration, or a press conference—the reaction is less about cricket and more about stardom. In Bengal’s cultural imagination, Ganguly isn’t just a former captain; he’s a folk hero.

Durga Puja: Dada rocks the billboards

Nothing demonstrates this better than Durga Puja, Bengal’s grandest festival. Over the years, pandals have turned Ganguly into a cultural deity. Some have featured clay idols of him alongside Durga, while others recreated his iconic Lord’s balcony celebration in painstaking detail. In 2019, one pandal even transformed itself into a cricket stadium with a towering cut-out of Ganguly at the entrance. Visitors didn’t just click photos—they folded their hands, as if seeking blessings from both the cricketer and the Indian deity.

Murals, memes, and street art

The streets of Kolkata tell their own story. In Behala, his home ground, murals of Ganguly appear alongside film posters and political graffiti. The shirtless Lord’s moment of 2002 has been immortalised in paint, pop art, and countless memes.

What’s striking is how Ganguly has reinvented himself for the digital generation. Young fans who never watched him play still know him as a meme king, a commentary-box wit, and a cultural icon whose images travel just as widely on WhatsApp forwards as any Tollywood superstar’s film stills.

Reel-to-real crossovers

The long-anticipated biopic on Ganguly’s life underscores this cultural crossover. With Rajkummar Rao slated to play him, the film is expected to capture his defiant rise from Behala’s bylanes to the Lord’s balcony. It’s a storyline that already feels cinematic: a local boy who challenged the cricketing establishment and redefined Indian swagger on the world stage. Beyond films, his brand endorsements, witty reality-show cameos, and TV appearances keep him entrenched in mainstream entertainment. In Bengal, where cricket and cinema are tightly intertwined, Ganguly occupies the sweet spot of both worlds.

An everlasting vibe

Now, as he begins his first professional coaching stint, his superstar vibe remains unshaken. Crowds still gather outside Eden Gardens, not just for matches, but for glimpses of the man who once made the city roar with pride. His appeal lies in more than numbers or trophies—it’s in the way he embodied Bengali ambition, defiance, and pride.

A die-hard fan put it best: “Prosenjit rules the screen, Dev rules the box office, but Dada rules our hearts.”

For Kolkata, that isn’t hyperbole. That’s the truth of their enduring love affair with Sourav Ganguly—the only cricketer who became a cultural landmark.