It became a name that would end up being shouted across the venue by the time she clinched the title-sealing win over Koneru Humpy and picked up the Player of the Tournament award, complete with a Jawa motorbike." I didn't expect it would actually become so popular in such a short span," Baskaran admitted.

Then there was the fasting. After a mid-tournament loss, Baskaran quietly made himself a promise."

I didn't have breakfast, I didn't have lunch, and I told myself if the team is not winning, I will also not have dinner," he said with a smile after Sunday's victory. " And they won.

So I could actually have dinner." What started as a one-off superstition calcified into a five-day ritual."

I thought, okay, why fix something which doesn't break? So I started to fast every lunch.

I didn't have lunch for the past five days, also with the thought that I would not have dinner if the team didn't win. But luckily, my team was always winning, and they were helping me, so I could at least have dinner," he revealed.

By the end of the tournament, he was only half-joking about the toll it had taken. " My stomach is literally crying now," he remarked.

An accidental nod to MS DhoniBaskaran's calm in the dugout, it turns out, had a specific origin, and it arrived by text message, from his father, in the middle of the rough patch earlier in the season." After the second day, I think we lost one match," Baskaran recalled.

" And my father sent me this message that, you know, you just try to be like one of your role models, Dhoni. He messaged, ' Try to be like Captain Cool, your role model.'

"" In fact, I chose my (jersey) number seven for Ronaldo," he said. " But actually, Dhoni's number is also seven.

So there's an inside joke about Dhoni; the credit always walks back to Dhoni." Pressed on whether that same reflexive credit-giving applied here, the way, say, cricketer Hardik Pandya once attributed India wins to Dhoni's mere presence in the dressing room, Baskaran deflected the comparison entirely."

No, no. Here I feel it's because of my team," he added.

" I think they played very well." Whatever the jersey number said, Baskaran's dugout stayed visibly, deliberately calm, right up until it had a trophy to celebrate.

A childhood hero, now a champion teammateBaskaran admits that the real reason he chose to coach the GCL outfit during his time off had little to do with money, fame, or anything material." Levon (Aronian) has been my hero for as long as I can remember," Baskaran revealed.

" Ever since he won the World Junior in Goa, I've been a big fan of him." Getting to coach him, rather than simply admire him from a distance, was its own reward.

" Getting to understand how the players are, the psychology, how they prepare, that's something I really wanted to know. So that was the reason I wanted to be part of this team."

Aronian, for his part, returned the affection when asked about Baskaran directly." He's such a friendly, such a calm and pleasant person," Aronian said after the trophy celebration.

" I've known him since he was very young, even our fathers are friends." Throughout the tournament, this did not look like a group of mercenaries assembled for a tournament, as confirmed by Aronian as well."

I think we have very relaxed egos, less structure in a team, and everybody can make a joke. There is no limit to jokes.

I just felt like it was some family type of experience. I will treasure those days," the veteran Grandmaster admitted.

Russian Grandmaster and the team's icon player Nepomniachtchi, whose demolition of Carlsen effectively won the title, echoed the same sentiment from a very different starting point, a player who admitted he'd arrived in Bengaluru unsure of his own form after a rough year of rating losses." I wasn't sure what my form was at the moment," he said.

" But I was really pleasantly surprised with the atmosphere inside the team. Despite different ages, different cultures, we really found points of connection.

It was always very healthy, very jokey. "' The funniest team' wins it finallyGoing by their social media, one can see the Ganges Grandmasters players often indulging in physical sports like padel, golf, and basketball after their gruelling round of matches in GCL.

Perhaps that built the team spirit." I think it's more about team spirit," Adhiban said.

" Always joking, always having fun, I would actually say we are the funniest team. Maybe that's one of the reasons."

Nobody had Ganges Grandmasters in their top two. By Sunday night, the top belonged to the man who led the underdogs, now holding a trophy, still fasting, still cracking jokes in the "funniest team" of the GCL's fourth edition.

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