Sourav Ganguly with daughter Sana after his return to the city on Wednesday. Picture by Santosh Ghosh

Chennai/Calcutta: Sourav Ganguly was moving towards the boarding gate at Chennai airport, on Wednesday evening, when a co-passenger ‘accosted’ him.

Claiming to be an astrologer, he predicted “great things” for the next two-three years. Taken by surprise, Sourav simply thanked him.

Cut to Calcutta, a shade over two hours later.

Sourav had barely got off the Jet aircraft when an airline employee pleaded that he be allowed to embrace “dada.” He then mustered courage to ask: “Apni abar captain hocchen ki na?”

Sourav didn’t have to reply ? somebody did (“keno hoben na...”) on his behalf. Not that the former Team India captain would have commented publicly.

As announced, the national selectors meet in Mumbai on Friday to pick the captain for Zimbabwe. Everything points to Sourav getting the job back. He lost the captaincy owing to a six-ODI ban.

The punishment got reduced by two matches. By then, though, Rahul Dravid had been appointed captain for the just-ended tri-series in Sri Lanka.

Having been out of the last two ODIs against Pakistan, in April, Sourav only missed the first two matches. He played the next three, including Tuesday’s final versus Sri Lanka, under Dravid.

Aware of the sensitivities, Sourav isn’t saying anything which could ignite a row in the lead-up to Friday. “I’m neither wanting nor not wanting the captaincy... I believe in destiny and whatever is destined will happen,” he told The Telegraph.

Did he miss being captain in the tri-series?

Sourav was, again, politically correct: “My role was that of a senior pro and I did the best I could... I wasn’t the captain and, so, didn’t think about the captaincy...”

Understandably, Sourav preferred not to speak about Dravid’s leadership in Sri Lanka. “Anything I say may be taken out of context... Therefore, I wouldn’t like to comment,” he said.

[Significantly, less than 24 hours earlier (in Colombo), Dravid had ducked captaincy-related questions.]

Asked whether he had analysed why we lost a final which, at one stage, was in our grasp, Sourav replied: “In time, that’s going to be done by everybody who matters... All I can say is that the disappointment won’t go away in a hurry... The loss hurts.”

It does.