Sourav Ganguly Profile

Full Name: Sourav Chandidas Ganguly Born: July 8, 1972, Kolkata, Bengal Major teams: India, Bengal, Glamorgan, Lancashire Batting style: Left-hand bat Bowling style: Right-arm medium

Achievements: Most number of Test victories as India captain; more than 10,000 runs in ODI cricket; highest ODI score by an Indian in World Cup; first Indian captain to win a Test series in Pakistan; India captain in most number of Tests

Sourav Chandidas Ganguly, commonly known as Sourav Ganguly has been a member of the Indian Cricket team, and regarded to be one of the most successful Captains ever of the Indian Cricket team. As a matter of fact, the Indian Test Cricket team won 21 Test Cricket matches out of total 49 that were played under his Captainship, which is one of the best success rates any Captain of the Indian Test Cricket team has ever managed to accomplish. Not only this, Ganguly, fondly known as Dada by his fans and Maharaj by his teammates, has to his credit the feat of having nurtured a number of efficient players who played under his Captainship. These include Virender Sahwag, Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh among others.

Early Days
Ganguly started playing Cricket at a very early age, as he got inspired by his elder bother Snehashish who played Cricket for Bengal. Interestingly, Sourav started playing with his left hand so that he could use his brother�s Cricket gear who himself was a left handed batsman. In his school days, Ganguly was the captain of St. Xavier�s School.

Beginning of the Cricket Career
Sourav Ganguly showed a good performance in the Ranji Trophy season of the year 1990-91. In the year 1992 he started his One Day International (ODI) Cricket career with a match against West Indies, in which he grabbed just 3 runs.

Again in the domestic Cricket he performed quite nicely during the years 1993-95. He scored 171 runs in an innings during the Duleep Trophy tournament of 1995-96 and was included in the national team for the England tour of the year 1996.

Test Debut
Sourav Ganguly made his Test Cricket debut at Lord�s Cricket Ground, in which he scored a century with 131 runs. This has been the highest score a batsman has achieved at Lord�s in his debut Test match.

Throughout his Test Cricket career, Ganguly played 113 Test Matches and scored a total of 7212 runs, including 16 centuries and 35 half-centuries. He scored 900 fours and 57 sixes as a Test Cricket batsman. His highest score in Test Cricket was 239 runs, and the overall Batting Average was 42.17 runs.

In the One Day International (ODI) Cricket, Ganguly played 311 matches and made a total score of 11363 runs comprising of 22 centuries and 72 half-centuries. The record included 1122 fours and 190 sixes, and the overall Batting Average was 41.02 runs.

Successful Captaincy
Sourav Ganguly is said to be one of India�s all time greatest Test Cricket Captains. After the match fixing scandal of the year 2000, He was declared Captain of the team. Under his Captaincy the Indian Cricket team reached the finals of the World Cup Cricket 2003, where Australia beat India to win the championship. During the year 2000-2005, he led the Indian Test Cricket team to 49 matches, out of which 21 were won by the team. He also led the Indian team to 146 One Day International (ODI) Cricket matches, out of which 76 were won by the team. In the year 2004, Ganguly was conferred upon with the Padma Shri award.

The Comeback
Ganguly made a comeback to the Indian Cricket team in a tour match against Rest of South Africa, in which he scored 83 runs leading India to victory. In his first Test Cricket innings after the comeback, he grabbed 51 runs in a Test match against South Africa. He also came back to the Indian ODI team in the year 2007, and in his first ODI innings after the comeback scored 98 runs in a match against West Indies.

Ganguly�s score of 66 runs was the highest in the first round match of the Indian team against the Bangladesh team in World Cup 2007, although the Indian team lost the match by 5 wickets.

He was named the Captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders team in the IPL Twenty-20 Cricket tournament 2008. In a match played between Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals during the tournament, Ganguly scored 51 runs off just 39 balls, which was his highest Twenty-20 Cricket score.

Last Moments
Ganguly played his last Test Cricket match against Australia in the year 2008, and scored 85 runs. He played his last ODI Cricket match against Pakistan on 15th of November 2007, in which he scored 5 runs.