DADA(Saurav Ganguly)| Bengal cricket Maharaja | lagend on indian cricket | saurav Ganguly history

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Saurav Ganguly was born to a life of luxury and comfort as he was the son of an affluent printer. Saurav is perhaps one of the richest Indian cricketer of his times. Ganguly's father presides over a big joint family of over 50 people, though they all do not live in the same house. There are 22 bedrooms in his house, and the family possesses over 20 cars.

• His first step towards cricket Ganguly's first step towards cricket was a happy accident of fate: Ganguly was not encouraged to play cricket because his parents wanted him to focus on his studies. But his elder brother Snehasish was an accomplished cricketer. He was a left-hander so Sourav simply followed his brother and started playing with left hand. It was convenient for him because he could thus use his brother's cricket equipment; for his fans, it was a blessed stroke of luck, for the joys of the left-handed drive in cricket surpass almost everything else. One fine day during his holidays, Sourav asked his father to get him enrolled in a cricket academy as he was finding difficult to pass his time.

• Setbacks An under-15 Orissa cricket team happened to be in Calcutta, and Sourav happened to smash them with a century. Young Sourav had found his métier. But the pain was yet to come. A hundred (121) for East Zone against West Zone in the Duleep Trophy in 1991 earned Sourav a place on the tour of Australia in 1991-92. He was played in only one One-day International match and was then forgotten for over four years. He thought that his career as an international cricketer was over as he was ridiculed as a non-talent, and it was alleged that he had 'attitude problems'. They said he refused to carry drinks for his teammates, he was too high-headed and arrogant, he behaved like a Maharaja, an emperor. None of it was true, says Sourav. But the labels stuck, and Sourav was a forgotten man. He was left alone to sort out his career, and to reinforce his shattered confidence, with some help from an English rugby team sports psychologist.

• Success at last ! But fate had more surprises in store. Sourav was chosen to tour England with the Indian team in 1996. Navjot Singh Sidhu, his roommate on the tour, chose to walk out of the team after a misunderstanding with captain Azharuddin, while Sanjay Manjrekar was injured. Sourav thus got a chance to make his Test debut. There was a crescendo of criticism on his selection for the tour; that the Bengal lobby was at the base of his inclusion was the harsh and unanimous verdict. But all that lasted only till the second Test at Lord's where he blasted a superb century.

• As a person Sourav Ganguly is a quiet, unassuming, undemonstrative man with nerves of steel. As the captain of the team, Ganguly's aggressive batting and big scores testify to the fact that he has learn to deal with pressure and the burden of leading the country does not constraint him. In fact, the responsibility seems to have had an encouraging effect; he is beginning to emerge from the shadow of Sachin Tendulkar. Sourav is a deeply religious person and observes a fast every Tuesday.

• His marriage He is married to Dona, who was a next-door neighbor to the Ganguly family. Their fathers were once friends but the relationship was strained and the young couple got married under cover. It was a typical Hindi movie love story where the hero and heroine are separated by their parents and so they run off to get married. And like the movie ends their families too reconciled but only in the end i.e. after the marriage.

• His first love You all will be surprised to know that 'Football' is Saurav's first love. He played for his school football team for four years. But since there were not many opportunities in football, he shifted to cricket. This shift of game was because of his father, who made him join a cricket coaching club. His father Mr. Chandi Ganguly had also played for the state.
  

• His Secret Now we will tell you a private habit of your favorite cricketer .............The first thing Saurav does after he checks into a hotel room is to place the portrait of goddess Kali and the picture of his wife Dona on his bed side table. For this Bengal Tiger there is nothing more relaxing than watching Dona (his wife who is a classical dancer)perform a dance routine.

Some interesting facts :

(1) There is an apartment complex in Kolkata, India which is named after Sourav. It is called the ‘Sourav Housing Complex'.

(2) A 1.5 km road in Rajarhat in the North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal is named after Sourav. He himself unveiled a plaque containing the new name of the road, Sourav Ganguly Avenue, at a function organized by the Rajarhat Gopalpur Municipality.

(3) Following Tendulkar's footsteps, Sourav opened a three-storey restaurant, Sourav's - The Food Pavilion in Calcutta's posh Park Street. It was inaugurated by Sachin Tendulkar in 2004.

(4) India have never lost a Test match in which Sourav scored a century.

(5) Sourav's daughter's name, Sana means 'praise'.

(6) Sourav is only the third cricketer in the world, along with Arvinda De Silva and Mahela Jayawarderne to score 100 and lead his team to the final of a World Cup.

(7) Sourav created the record of playing the most number of Tests (99) before getting a 200.

(8) Sourav missed the rare feat of scoring a double hundred and a hundred in the same Test when he was out on 91 in the 2nd innings vs. Pakistan at Bangalore in December 2007. If he had gotten the 100, Dada would've been only the 2nd Indian after Gavaskar and 7th overall to do so.

(9) Sourav was out for a first ball duck in his final Test innings and joined Don Bradman who had also fallen for a duck, although not a first ball one, in his last innings.

Cricket Career

Some felt he couldn't play the bouncer, others swore that he was God on the off-side; some laughed at his lack of athleticism, others took immense pride in his ability to galvanize a side. Sourav Ganguly's ability to polarize opinion led to one of the most fascinating dramas in Indian cricket. Yet, nobody can dispute that he was India's most successful Test captain - forging a winning unit from a bunch of talented, but directionless, individuals - and nobody can argue about him being one of the greatest one-day batsmen of all time. Despite being a batsman who combined grace with surgical precision in his stroke play, his career had spluttered to a standstill before being resurrected by a scintillating hundred on debut at Lord's in 1996. Later that year, he was promoted to the top of the order in ODIs and, along with Sachin Tendulkar, formed one of the most destructive opening pairs in history.

When he took over the captaincy after the match-fixing exposes in 2000, he quickly proved to be a tough, intuitive and uncompromising leader. Under his stewardship India started winning Test matches away, and put together a splendid streak that took them all the way to the World Cup final in 2003. Later that year, in Australia, an unexpected and incandescent hundred at Brisbane set the tone for the series - Steve Waugh's last - where India fought the world's best team to a standstill. Victory in Pakistan turned him into a cult figure but instead of being a springboard for greater things, it was the peak of a slippery slope.

Victory in Pakistan - India's first away from home in 11 years - made Sourav Ganguly India's most successful Test captain ever, completing a remarkable turnaround for a man who was summarily jettisoned after playing only a bit-part role on his first tour of Australia in 1991-92. And it was in Australia that his leadership scaled new heights a dozen years later, as a brilliant century in the opening Test at Brisbane set the tone for a series - Steve Waugh's last - where India fought the world's best team to a standstill. Ganguly combines amazing grace and surgical precision in his stroke play, especially on the off side, but his career had spluttered to a standstill before being resurrected by a scintillating hundred on debut at Lord's in 1996. When he took over the captaincy after the match-fixing exposes in 2000, he quickly proved to be a tough, intuitive and uncompromising leader, traits best illustrated in the historic series against Australia in 2001, when he made light of personal travails to lead India to a famous victory.

Under his stewardship, with John Wright providing inputs off the field, India started winning Test matches away, and put together a splendid eight-match winning streak that took them all the way to the World Cup final in 2003. Despite having been his team's most consistent one-day batsmen over the previous three seasons, he also relinquished the opening slot to accommodate Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar, and several gutsy efforts in Test cricket were none-too-subtle reminders to critics who insisted that he was deeply vulnerable against the short ball. Effective with his medium-pace on seaming tracks, Ganguly will most be remembered though for having forged a winning unit from a bunch of talented, but directionless, individuals.

The beginning of the end came in 2004 at Nagpur - when his last-minute withdrawal played a part in Australia clinching the series - and things went pear shaped when his loss of personal form coincided with India's insipid ODI performances. Breaking point was reached when his differences with Greg Chappell leaked into public domain and his career was in jeopardy when India began their remarkable revival under Rahul Dravid. His gritty 30s at Karachi, when India succumbed to a humiliating defeat in early 2006, weren't enough for him to retain his spot and some felt he would never get another chance. Others, as always, thought otherwise and they were proved right when he was included in the Test squad for the away series in South Africa in 2006-2007.

He ended as the highest Indian run-scorer in that series and capped his fairytale comeback with four half-centuries on his return to ODIs. He continued his fine run in England, where he finished as the second highest scorer in Tests, and went on to slam back-to-back hundreds against Pakistan at home, the second of which was a glorious 239 in Bangalore. Ganguly was surprisingly omitted from India's ODI squad for the CB Series in Australia and has been out of contention in the one-day squad since. After a poor Test series in Sri Lanka, there were reports of him considering retirement but he was given a lifeline in the Tests against Australia at home. Two days before the first Test, he said the series would be his last.

Overall Career Statistics

Batting and Fielding (1996-2008)

class	mat	inns	no	runs	hs	ave	bf	sr	100	50	4s	6s	ct
Tests	113	188	17	7212	239	42.17	14070	51.25	16	35	900	57	71
ODIs	311	300	23	11363	183	41.02	15416	73.70	22	72	1122	190	100
First-class	237	374	41	14540	200*	43.66			30	83			165
List A	423	407	42	15161	183	41.53			31	93			130
Twenty-20	31	30	2	761	91	25.92	657	110.50	0	4	80	24	11

Bowling (1996-2008)

class	mat	balls	runs	wkts	bbi	bbm	ave	econ	sr	4	5	10
Tests	113	3117	1682	32	3/28	3/37	52.53	3.23	97.4	0	0	0
ODIs	311	4561	3849	100	5/16	5/16	38.49	5.06	45.6	1	2	0
First-class	237	10920	6013	164	6/46		36.66	3.30	66.5		4	0
List A	423	7949	5454	168	5/16	5/16	38.41	4.87	47.3	4	2	0

Twenty-20

31

417

521

25

3/27

3/27

20.84

7.39

16.6

0

0

0

Captaincy (2000-2005)

class	mat	won	lost	drawn/nr	success rate	tosses won	bat (runs)	bat (ave)	100	50
Tests	49	21	13	15	42.86%	21	2561	37.66	5	13
ODIs	147	76	66	5	51.70%	74	5104	38.66	11	30

see also:

Rare pics of saurav ganguly

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