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Saurav Ganguly

Better known as the Prince Of Kolkata, Sourav Ganguly was born on 8th July 1972. Ganguly is a key figure in indian cricket. He was the most successful indian captain ever. Sourav Ganguly's sound technique and immaculate talent saw him play many match winning innings for india. A left hand bat, sourav was so fluent through the offside that commentators would say that he was the "god" of offside shots.

Career Overview

Sourav made his international debut in tests against West Indies in the year 1992. However he was dropped as a result of arrogant behavior and poor scoring. However he bounced back and in 1993-94 season scored heavily in the Ranji Trophy. He was then called for the tour to england in 1996. Despite all controversies surrounding him,ganguly impressed one and all by magic performances that saw him cement a place in the national test squad. India much needed a left hander like Brian lara and ganguly was india's answer to lara. In the year 1997, Ganguly made his ODI debut against Sri Lanka. Ganguly then became the captain of the indian one day and test squad in the year 2000.

Captaincy- The Sourav way

Sourav Ganguly was india's most successful captain ever. In his reign india reached the finals of the world cup in 2003. India ultimately lost to australia in the finals. It was in ganguly's captaincy that india won 21 tests in 49 games; the maximum success enjoyed by an indian captain. Ganguly has scored more than 11,000 runs in his illustrious career making him a strong backbone on which india relied on for many years. Sourav was an aggressive captain. His shirt removing act in england will be long remembered by many. Ganguly was fearless. He was involved in a number of controversies as a captain but never let them affect his captaincy.

Declining Career

Following a string of bad performances, sourav ganguly has been kept out of the ODI's for a long time now. After the disastrous 2007 world cup ganguly has hardly been on the pitch for a One Dayer.

Awards Won

Ganguly has won the following honors in his illustrious career.

  • Captained India in a record 49 Test matches
  • Led India to a record 21 Test wins
  • His test average has never been less than 40.
   * Hold the record of most 200+ ODI partnerships (6 times) along with Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting.
   * Holds the record, shared with Sachin Tendulkar, for most 1st wicket ODI partnerships of 175+ runs (7 times).
   * Holds the record, shared with Mahendra Singh Dhoni, for the second highest score by an Indian cricketer in an ODI — 183, against Sri Lanka in 1999.
   * Held the record, shared with Sachin Tendulkar, for the highest first wicket partnership for India in an ODI match, 258, against Kenya in 2001. This record was bettered by Sri Lankan opening pair of Jayasuriya and Tharanga in 2006 at Headingley.
  • Was involved in the first 300 run ODI partnership with Rahul Dravid.
  • Sixth on the all time list with 31 man of the match awards.
  • He is also the only player to win 4 consecutive man of the match awards in ODIs.
  • India's most successful ODI captain.
  • First Indian to score an ODI century against Australia in Australia.
  • Highest ODI runs scorer in the world (in a calendar year) in 1997,1999,2000.
  • Third in the list of hitting maximum number of sixes in ODIs.
  • Second in the list of highest number of centuries in a single calendar year ever. 7 centuries in 2000.