Pathan and Ganguly were once teammates at Kolkata; Azad and Pathan are both World Cup winners, and Ganguly has been one of Team India's most prominent leaders
The Trinamool Congress's crisis has an unlikely sub-plot. Three familiar names from Indian cricket are caught up in it, and each is standing in a different corner.
Yusuf Pathan is reportedly among the rebels against Team Mamata; Kirit Azad remains firmly with her; and Sourav Ganguly, and alleged emissary, has denied any role whatsoever. (AP, PTI File Photos)
The most vocal is Kirti Azad, a member of India's 1983 World Cup-winning side and now the TMC's Bardhaman-Durgapur MP, who has emerged as one of Mamata Banerjee's fiercest defenders against the rebels. Originally from Bihar but a longtime leader with political roots in many places, Azad used to be an all-rounder — a right-hand batter and an aggressive right-arm off-break bowler.
Kirti Azad slams rebels
Azad has dismissed the rebels' claim of having 20 MPs with them. He called it "the fake and fabricated narrative of the dirty tricks department of BJP," insisting only 13 had attended the rebel meeting and “no one else has signed on the dotted line”.
He was blunt about their motives at a press meet in New Delhi on Tuesday: "If you want to go to the BJP, say that openly"; and about Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, who leads the revolt: "Kakoli lost five elections, yet Mamata Banerjee made her an MP."
Azad said he and the other loyalists were “born out of struggle”. Son of former Bihar CM Bhagwat Jha Azad, who was a Congress stalwart and freedom fighter, Kirti Azad has had a political path that runs through three parties, the BJP and the Congress, besides the TMC at present. He was MLA in Delhi, then a multi-term MP from Darbhanga in Bihar, before winning his current Lok Sabha seat in West Bengal for the TMC.
Yusuf Pathan, the other all-rounder
In the opposite corner is Yusuf Pathan , of India's 2011 World Cup-winning squad and the TMC's Baharampur MP, who also happened to be a batter-spinner like Kirti Azad.
Pathan, a Gujarati who became an IPL star with Kolkata Knight Riders, is now the subject of defection talk as the party's Lok Sabha unit splits and a rebel camp claims nearly 20 of its 28 MPs back the NDA.
Mahua Moitra has publicly accused Pathan, who's been quiet as of June 9 afternoon, of "rushing to Delhi" at Union home minister and BJP leader Amit Shah's call. Shah and PM Narendra Modi happen to be Gujarati too.
Moitra told Pathan to show "some shame and some spine".
Another Mamata loyalist MP Kalyan Banerjee said Pathan had told him Shah had summoned him. Pathan has not taken a position publicly.
'Dada' denies he has a role
The third is the arguably the biggest star among the three, Sourav Ganguly — not a politician at all, but pulled in regardless.
A front-page report in a Bangla daily last week said the former India captain and opening batsman acted as Mamata Banerjee's emissary, asking Pathan to vacate his seat so she could contest a by-election. Pathan said no, claimed the report.
Ganguly rejected the report outright in a June 6 statement, saying he "never approached or contacted Mr Yusuf Pathan" and had "never been involved in political matters at any stage". He urged the media not to “fall prey to rumours and speculations”.
Former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly at an event in Mumbai last Sunday. (Sandip Mahankal/ANI Photo) The threads run back to the dressing room as much as to numbers in the Parliament House. Pathan and Ganguly were once teammates at the Kolkata Knight Riders; Azad and Pathan are both World Cup winners; Ganguly, who also bowled a bit of medium pace, captained India to the 2003 WC final and built a new and aggressive Indian cricketing tradition.
The TMC has long drawn candidates from cinema and sport, and in 2024 sent both Azad and Pathan to Parliament from Bengal.
Ganguly, lovingly called ‘Dada' (brother in Bangla) by fans, has consistently got offers to join politics, given that he is a cultural mega-star in Bengal in particular; but he is not interested, he has said.
Aarish Chhabra is an Associate Editor with the Hindustan Times online team, writing news reports and explanatory articles, besides overseeing coverage for the website. His career spans nearly two decades across India's most respected newsrooms in print, digital, and broadcast. He has reported, written, and edited across formats — from breaking news and live election coverage, to analytical long-reads and cultural commentary — building a body of work that reflects both editorial rigour and a deep curiosity about the society he writes for.
Aarish studied English literature, sociology and history, besides journalism, at Panjab University, Chandigarh, and started his career in that city, eventually moving to Delhi.
He is also the author of ‘The Big Small Town: How Life Looks from Chandigarh’, a collection of critical essays originally serialised as a weekly column in the Hindustan Times, examining the culture…
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