Sourav Ganguly

Sourav Ganguly (born July 8, 1972, Calcutta (now Kolkata), India) is a former Indian international cricketer considered as one of the greatest one-day international (ODI) batters of all time. He was also a medium-paced bowler. He was a member of the “Fab Four” of Indian cricket, a list of incredibly successful Indian batters that included Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, and V.V.S. Laxman, and has been one of India’s most successful captains.

Entry into cricket

Ganguly’s elder brother, Snehasish Ganguly, a left-handed batter, was an established cricketer and prompted his sibling to take up the sport as well. Naturally right-handed, Sourav Ganguly took to batting left-handed so he could use his brother’s cricket gear. The younger Ganguly made his first-class debut in the 1989–90 season for the Bengal state team. The Bengal team won the Ranji Trophy that season, beating the Delhi team in the final.

International cricket

Ganguly received his first call up to the Indian team on a tour of Australia in 1991–92 but played in only one ODI match, against the West Indies team, scoring just three runs. He did not play any more international cricket on the tour and was then dropped from the team, not making it back for another four years. However, he continued to score a lot of runs in domestic cricket in the 1993–94 and 1994–95 seasons.

Ganguly was recalled to the Indian team in 1996 for the tour of England. He played in one ODI, scoring 46. The Test series that followed saw Ganguly’s debut in Tests, in the second match of the series, at the home of Test cricket—Lord’s Cricket Ground. He scored a fluent 131 while his co-debutant, Dravid, scored 95. In the third and final match of the series, Ganguly scored another century and was adjudged India’s player of the series.

In 1997 Ganguly was promoted to open the batting in ODIs and formed one of the greatest ODI partnerships of all time with Sachin Tendulkar. He scored his first ODI century in 1997 against Sri Lanka; 21 ODI centuries were to follow in his career. In 1998 he scored 124 as opener as India successfully chased a total of 316 in the Independence Cup final against Pakistan. During that era chasing totals of more than 300 successfully was considered nigh impossible.

Ganguly featured in India’s World Cup squad in the 1999 ODI World Cup. The match against Sri Lanka was notable for the first partnership of more than 300 runs in ODI cricket, between Ganguly and Dravid. Ganguly scored 183 in that match, the highest ODI run score by an Indian in a World Cup for decades to come. He continued to rack up runs in ODIs into the 2000s but, in comparison, his Test returns were less consistent.

Captaincy

In the early 2000s the cricketing world was rocked by a match-fixing scandal, and national captains like Mohammad Azharuddin of India and Hansie Cronje of South Africa were implicated. In this environment, Sachin Tendulkar, the captain of India, resigned from the post, and Ganguly was made the captain, with Rahul Dravid as his deputy.

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He has been one of the most successful cricket captains of the team. In 2001 an Australian side that had won 15 Test matches in a row toured India. Down 1–0 after the first Test, the Indian team went on to the win the series 2–1 under Ganguly’s stewardship.

Ganguly led India to the Champions Trophy title in 2002, after the final against Sri Lanka was abandoned due to rain; both teams shared the trophy. His partnership with coach John Wright worked well for the team. Young talents like Zaheer Khan, Yuvraj Singh, and Mohammad Kaif were nurtured by Ganguly. In 2002, this paid off when Yuvraj and Kaif pulled off an upset win over England in the final of the NatWest Trophy. In the 2003 ODI World Cup, Ganguly led India to the final. India won all its matches in the series, except against the eventual champions (Australia).

At the time, India was known for winning Test matches usually only in its home country. Under Ganguly, India got Test wins overseas as well. On the 2003–04 Test tour of Australia, Ganguly’s fighting century in the first Test set the tone for a tightly fought series that ended 1–1. India won the Test series in Pakistan 2–1 in 2004 under his captaincy, the team’s first series win in that country. Ganguly finished with 21 wins in the 49 Tests he captained in, which included 11 wins outside India. In ODIs, he captained India in 146 matches, winning 76.

Post-captaincy career

In 2005 Ganguly was dropped from the Indian team as he had differences with the newly appointed coach Greg Chappell. He returned to domestic cricket but was eventually recalled to the international side for a tour of South Africa in 2006. He had high run scores in both Tests and ODIs that followed, including a career-best 239 against Pakistan in Bengaluru in 2007. Following the 2008 series against Australia, Ganguly retired from international cricket. He continued to play domestic cricket until 2012.

In 2008 Ganguly was picked as the marquee player and captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders franchise in the Indian Premier League (IPL), a professional Twenty20 (T20) cricket league in the country. He remained with the team until 2010. In 2011 and 2012 he played for the Pune Warriors team.

Life after cricket

After retirement, Ganguly moved into television commentary and worked as a TV analyst. He served as the president of the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) for a few years. In 2019 he was appointed as adviser to the Delhi Capitals IPL team but resigned to accept the post of president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the governing body of cricket in India.