Sourav Ganguly is a former Indian cricket team captain and the second greatest run-getter from India in the ODIs. He was known as the 'god off side' due to his exemplary skill of playing shots on the offside.
Sourav Ganguly's Biography
He had been born on 8 July 1972 at Behala, Kolkata. Sourav gained attention in cricket because of his elder brother Snehashish, who performed for the Bengal cricket team. They assembled a couple of practice pitches in the home and began developing Sourav's abilities on these pitches.
Even though a right-hander, he started batting left-handed so that he could use his brother's cricket equipment.
National livelihood
Sourav rose through the ranks by virtue of his performances in college cricket. At the age of 18, he left his Ranji Trophy debut at the forefront between Bengal and Delhi in the Eden Gardens. While the game ended in a draw, Bengal was crowned as the winner.
International Debut
Based on his performances in the domestic competition, he had been handed an ODI debut in January 1992 against West Indies. Not only he collapsed in his first outing, but he also became notorious due to his arrogant attitude.
He was then dropped from the national side with immediate impact, making him return to national rivals.
He made his test debut in the Lord's and made the maximum score (131) by any batsman on debut at Lord's. He again scored a century in the first innings of the second test and became just the third batsman to score centuries in the first two innings of the career.
Ganguly then went on score 1533 test runs for example, four hundred and eight fifties and 3237 ODI runs for example six hundred and 23 fifties from 1997 into the 1999 World Cup. He hit his career best score of 183 runs in ODIs during the 1999 World Cup.
Captaincy
In 2000, Sourav Ganguly was appointed the captain of the ODI team. He led the team to its first series victory against South Africa. He successfully took the teams into the finals of the 2000 ICC Knockout Trophy. Though the team did not achieve a lot of trophies, it made a statement that India could fight overseas too.
Beneath Ganguly's captaincy, India broke Australia's series of winning 16 consecutive test matches in 2001.
Another highlight of Sourav's career came during the Natwest Series where India beat England in an ODI at Lord's and he swayed his T-shirt in the Lord's balcony. It was a reaction to Andrew Flintoff who swayed his T-shirt in the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
Although his captaincy was on an increase, his batting performances had taken a dip. In 2005, he was dropped from the group.
The bad patch lasted within 2007 when Greg Chappell was appointed India team coach. Greg was a villain for India as he had battles with many mature players, and Ganguly was among them. Greg declared Sourav to be mentally and physically unfit to lead team India.
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