The name Sourav Chandidas Ganguly reminds one of courage, success, confidence and controversy. He is the most successful Indian captain. Born on July 8, 1972 in Kolkata, Bengal, Sourav Ganguly was a fantastic left handed batsman.
Termed as ‘God on the off-side’ by his team mate and another great cricketer Rahul Dravid, he was all class and elegance on the pitch. Ganguly played for Bengal, Glamorgan, Lancashire (both English county teams) and India. He was also a useful right arm medium bowler.
More than anything, Sourav Ganguly will be remembered as one person who changed the fortunes and attitude of Indian cricket team. He started his tenure as Indian cricket captain when India was going through worst ever crisis of match fixing scandals. From the depth of that incident, he carried forward India to altogether different league.
Under his leadership, India started to win even on foreign soils. Sourav Ganguly instilled this ‘never say die’ attitude in the Indian cricket team. He is also known to encourage many promising youngsters who later on made their marks in international arena. More than anything else, he was a fighter who made his comeback in international cricket twice and with great success.
His achievements lists include, most number of Test victories as India captain; highest score by an Indian in world cup match, more than 10,000 runs in ODI cricket and captained Indian side for 49 times that is maximum by any Indian captain. He was also the first Indian captain to win a test series in Pakistan. He also led Indian cricket team to final of the 2003 world cup.
Personally, he scored two consecutive centuries in his first two test matches against England in England. He also formed one of the best opening partnerships in ODIs along with Sachin Tendulkar.
Sourav Ganguly played his last against Australia in the recently concluded Border-Gavaskar trophy where he was one of the top scorers for both teams. His contributions to the Indian cricket team will be always be remembered and cherished.