Sourav Ganguly

Known as the Bengal Tiger of the Indian cricket team, Sourav Ganguly is arguably one of the most successful captains ever in the history of Indian cricket. Born on the 8th of July 1972 in Kolkata, the aggressive left-handed batsman entered the international cricketing arena in 1992 with his ODI debut against West Indies. Ganguly could not make an impression in his debut match and was dropped from the team only to return after four years due to his excellent domestic cricketing credentials.

Sourav Ganguly immediately shot to fame with an excellent 131-run knock in his Test debut against England, becoming only the third cricketer after Harry Graham and John Hampshire to score a century on debut at Lord's. In the following Test match, he rose above expectations to share a 255-run opening partnership with Sachin Tendulkar, coming up with an outstanding knock of 136 runs. In 1997, Sourav Ganguly opened the Indian innings and came up with a blazing 113-run knock against Sri Lanka to score his maiden ODI century. There was no looking back after that as one of the most sensational cricketing careers was all set to be scripted in bold letters against the backdrop of immense popularity and ugly controversies.

In the latter half of 1997, Ganguly won four consecutive Man of the Match awards in the Sahara Cup against Pakistan which also included some excellent bowling efforts. He ended the year on a high note with three Test centuries against Sri Lanka. In 1998, Sourav Ganguly scaled new heights of success with quite a few impressive performances against Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

In 1999 Cricket World Cup, Ganguly set the record for the highest score by an Indian and the second highest ever in world cup history with a blitzkrieg of 183 runs off just 158 balls. He also entered into a 318-run partnership with Rahul Dravid which proved to be the highest ever in world cup and the second highest ever in ODI cricket history. In the latter half of the year, Ganguly suffered from bad Test form but flourished like anything in ODIs to end the season with nothing less than five centuries to his credit.

Eventually, the lady luck smiled on him as he was nominated captain after match-fixing scandals rocked the cricket world in 2000. History was in the making as Ganguly led India to unchartered territories of success to emerge as one of the most successful captains ever in the international cricketing arena.

He led India to the world cup finals in 2003 before Australia washed off all hopes of winning the world cup with its clinical execution of cricketing skills. During his captaincy between 2000 and 2005, India managed to win 21 out of 49 Test matches including a record of 12 overseas victories. One of the highlights of Ganguly's career as a skipper includes both Test and ODI series wins against Pakistan, which came for the first time in nearly past half a century. Other achievements include India's victory against Australia in the 2001 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, which was only another feather in his cap.

Ganguly's euphoric success as a captain, however, was also accompanied by a loss of individual form in both the Test and ODI formats of the game which was bound to affect his career adversely in the long run. Ganguly's ODI averages fell from 45.5 before 2000 to 34.9 between 2000 and 2005 before finally slumping to a meagre 29 against the Test playing nations. His Test form was also beset with problems with the first lean patch stretching from 1999 to 2002. After 2003 Cricket World Cup, Ganguly's ODI batting averages reached a low of 28 and he suffered from a complete loss of form in 2004-05 season before being dropped from the Indian squad in October 2005.

During 2005-06, Sourav Ganguly was also involved in a series of unfortunate controversies including his infamous spat with the Indian Coach, Greg Chappell who squarely blamed Sourav for exercising favoritism in cricket. The controversy also attracted some extreme reactions from Sourav's fans, especially after his infamous exit from the Indian team.

He also met with little success in domestic cricketing arena after his exile from the international cricket and his appearances for English County in 2005 did not help much. To make the matters worse, Ganguly also failed to make an impact with his performances in the Challenger Trophy.

Despite passing through all these adversities, Sourav Ganguly never left hope of making it back into the Indian squad and eventually fortune favored him once again as he was called back into the side for a three-Test series against South Africa in November 2006. Soon, he made a successful comeback in ODIs as well with his excellent form against West Indies and Sri Lanka in January 2007. This led to his inclusion in the 2007 World Cup squad where India failed miserably and made an exit from the tournament in the preliminary stage itself.

Sourav Ganguly also represented India in the Future Cup 2007 held between India and Australia in September-October 2007 where he was called to open the innings after Gambhir failed to make an impact in the first three matches of the seven match-series. In his first appearance, he immediately made an impact by contributing an important 41 runs and helped India secure its first win in the series after being placed 2-0 down in the series. In the next match, however, Ganguly failed again and was out for a duck only to make a comeback in the following match where he scored an ecstatic 86 runs which, however, proved insufficient to reach an imposing target of 318 runs set by the Australians. In the last match of the series, Ganguly again failed to live upto the expectations and was out for nought. However, India won the match with the help of a few spirited performances from the youngsters.

Some of the milestones set by this cricketer include 22 ODI centuries and as many as 20 century opening-partnerships with Sachin Tendulkar. Sourav Ganguly is the third player to score 10,000 ODI runs and second-fastest after Sachin Tendulkar. Ganguly was also awarded with Padma Shri in 2004 for his magnanimous contribution to the world of cricket.

The only constant thing about Sourav Ganguly's career is that it has always been in transition and almost as unpredictable as the game of cricket itself is known to be. Still, his talent and potential as a cricketer of the highest standards cannot be doubted for a moment which has helped set quite a few milestones in the history of Indian cricket and hopefully will keep on doing so with his aggressive and never-say-die approach to the game.