Sourav Ganguly

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Sourav Ganguly
Image:Saurav1.jpg
India
Personal information
Batting style	Left hand bat
Bowling style	Right arm medium
Career statistics
	Tests	ODIs
Matches	100	311
Runs scored	6429	11363
Batting average	43.14	41.02
100s/50s	15/30	22/72
Top score	239	183
Balls bowled	2948	4561
Wickets	32	100
Bowling average	49.93	38.49
5 wickets in innings	0	2
10 wickets in match	0	n/a
Best bowling	3/37	5/16
Catches/ stumpings	65/0	100/0
As of December 31, 2007 Source:

Sourav Chandidas Ganguly (Bengali: সৌরভ গাঙ্গুলী) ( pronunciation ) (born 8 July 1972), is an Indian cricketer. Ganguly lives at Barisha in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta).

Ganguly is a left-handed batsman and a right-arm medium-pace bowler. He is the seventh Indian cricketer to have played 100 Test matches. He is currently the 5th highest overall run scorer for India in Tests. He is the fourth Indian to have played in more than 300 One Day Internationals. In terms of overall runs scored in ODIs, Ganguly is the second among Indians after Sachin Tendulkar (who has the highest ODI runs in the world) and the fourth in the world. Ganguly has scored 15 centuries in Test matches and 22 in ODIs. He is one of only seven batsmen to score more than 10,000 runs in ODIs.

Ganguly was the captain of the Indian cricket team from 2000 to 2005. He led India in a record 49 Test matches and is the most successful Test captain of his country (India won in 21 of the 49 test matches that Ganguly led). He also led India to the 2003 World Cup final.

Following an exit from the national team in early 2006, Ganguly was recalled to the Indian test side in December, staging a successful comeback in the 2006 - 2007 Indian tour of South Africa.

Ganguly has earned various nicknames over the years. He is affectionately called Dada (which means elder brother in Bengali), and sometimes Dadi, by his team-mates. Former England captain Geoffrey Boycott named him The Prince of Calcutta. During Ganguly's stint at English county cricket, some English sports journalists conferred upon him the highly sarcastic title Lord Snooty for his apparent aloofness from his county teammates.

International career

Ganguly made his One Day International (ODI) debut for India against West Indies in 1992 scoring just 3 he was dropped immediately. He returned to International cricket four years later, following a good domestic record, he was recalled into the national side for a Test series in England. He made his Test debut at Lord's, scoring a century he became only the third cricketer to score a century on debut at Lord's, after Harry Graham and John Hampshire. ( Andrew Strauss has also since accomplished this feat). In the next Test match at Trent Bridge he scored another century, 136, sharing in a 255 run stand with Sachin Tendulkar.

In 1997 Ganguly scored his maiden ODI century, opening the innings he scored 113, in his side's 238, against Sri Lanka later that year he won four consecutive Man of the match awards in the Sahara Cup with Pakistan the second of these was won after he took 5/16 off 10 overs, his best bowling in a ODI. After a barren run in Test cricket his form returned at the end of the year with three centuries in four Tests all against Sri Lanka two of this involved 250+ stands with Sachin Tendulkar.

In January 1998, he had one of his most memorable performances in the final of the Independence Cup at Dhaka against Pakistan he scored 124 as India successfully chased down 315 off 48 overs, winning the Man of the match award. In March 1998 he was part of the India team that beat Australia his biggest impact came in Calcutta as he took three wickets having opened the bowling with his medium pace.

In the 1999 World Cup Ganguly smashed 183 against Sri Lanka at Taunton, the innings took 158 balls and included 17 fours and 7 sixes. It is the second highest in World Cup history and the highest by an Indian in the tournament. His partnership of 318 with Rahul Dravid is the highest ever in the World Cup and is the second highest in all ODI cricket.

In 1999/00 India lost series to both Australia and South Africa in the five Tests Ganguly struggled scoring 224 runs at 22.40. However his ODI form was impressive with five centuries over the season taking him to the top of PwC One Day Ratings for batsmen.

In 2000, after the match fixing scandal Ganguly was named the captain of the India team. In the Champions Trophy of that year he scored 2 centuries but his second in the final was in vain as New Zealand won by four wickets.

In 2003 under his captaincy India reached the World Cup Final, where they lost to the Australians.

While he has achieved significant success as captain, his individual performance deteriorated during his captaincy, especially after successes in the World Cup, the tour of Australia in 2003 and the Pakistan series in 2004. Following indifferent form in 2004 and poor form in 2005, he was dropped from the team in October 2005. He remained active on the first-class cricket scene in hopes of a recall, but his performance was a mixed bag - he hit a couple of centuries in domestic cricket, but his English county stint in 2005 and subsequent appearances in the Challenger Trophy were failures.

Ganguly has 22 centuries in ODIs, in terms of number of centuries in ODIs, he is only behind Sachin Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya and Ricky Ponting. Sourav, along with Sachin Tendulkar, formed by far the most successful opening pair in One Day Cricket, having amassed the highest number of century partnerships (26) for the first wicket. Together, they have scored more than 7000 runs at an average of 48.98, now with Sachin he is a world record holder for creating most no. of 50 run partnership in the first wicket(44 fifties) .

Ganguly is the fourth player to cross 11,000 ODI runs and third player to cross 10,000 ODI runs and so far the fastest in ODI history, after Sachin Tendulkar. He also reached 6000, 7000, 8000 and 9000 ODI runs milestones in the fewest number of matches. Sourav can bowl medium-pacers as well, but has under-achieved in this aspect in Test matches, taking 31 wickets in 99 matches, at an average of 52.47. As of 2006, he is the only Indian captain to win a Test series in Pakistan (although two of the three tests of that series was led by Rahul Dravid). He is also one of the 3 players in the world to achieve amazing treble of 10,000 runs, 100 wickets and 100 catches in ODI cricket history, the others being Sachin Tendulkar and Sanath Jayasuriya.

In 2004, he was awarded the Padma Shri.

His older brother Snehasish Ganguly played first-class cricket for Bengal.

Ganguly's international cricket career could be bisected into 2 halves, the pre and the post Y2K eras. The significance of the year 2000 lies not only in the fact that he became the captain of the Indian team but also in the fact that the ICC introduced the one bouncer per over rule in ODIs starting from that year. This introduction of the rule by the ICC had a negative impact on Sourav Ganguly's batting average, which plunged from a high 45.5 before the year 2000 to a low 34.9 between the 5 year period of 2001-2005 . Also, against Test playing nations (which included Zimbabwe and Bangladesh), his overall average plunged further down to 30.66, as did his 'away' average which fell to 29. He managed to score only (6) centuries between 2001-2005, of which 3 centuries were against Kenya & 1 was against Namibia. This sudden drop in his batting average against Test playing nations after 2001 was clearly a result of the short pitched bowling he had to encounter from opposition bowlers. As S.Rajesh, the assistant editor of Cricinfo analyzes, Ganguly has been dismissed numerous times fending off the short ball.

Also, Ganguly's Test career had been riddled with lean patches, the first of which stretched for 3 years from Dec 1999 to Dec 2002 , during which his batting average fell to 31.77 in 36 consecutive Test matches over 60 innings. The next biggest lean patch of his career occurred after the 2003 World Cup, when his ODI average fell to 28 and this was when his place in the team was questioned by numerous Indian cricket fans. He averaged 24.95 in 25 ODI matches between August 2004 and September 2005 , before being finally dropped from the ODI side.

Despite his hot and cold streaks Ganguly is only the third Indian Test match batsman to maintain a career average that never dipped below 40 runs per innings for his entire Test career. The other two who achieved this feat are Sunil Gavaskar and Mohammad Azharuddin.

Ganguly also shares with G.R. Viswanath the Indian record for scoring at least 10 or more centuries and never being on the losing side in every match in which they had scored a century. He also shares with Mohammad Azharuddin the record of scoring two consecutive hundreds in his first two Test matches, though Azharuddin bettered that by scoring a third consecutive hundred in his third Test match.

Ganguly has the highest Test and ODI aggregate of any left-handed batsman India has produced and his 13 Test and 22 ODI centuries are also a record for any Indian left-hander.

It was, however, as captain of the Indian team that Ganguly's biggest achievements occurred. He led India in 49 Test Matches, winning 21 of those, including 12 of them outside India. All three figures are records for Indian Test captains. He also led India to their first series wins in both Tests and ODIs in Pakistan, a feat that had eluded India for over 50 years. Ganguly also led India to more Test wins (12) outside India between 2000 and 2005 than all Indian captains had done between 1980 and 2000. He led India to victory over Steve Waugh's Australia in the 2001 Border-Gavaskar trophy which is considered one of the greatest in Indian cricket history.

Rahul Dravid once commented, "On the off-side, first there is God, then there is Ganguly”.

Comeback

In November 2006 Ganguly was selected by the national board of selectors, chaired by Dilip Vengsarkar, in the team for the three-Test series against South Africa. The decision came after India could not reach even the Semi-finals of the Champions Trophy, held in India, as well as losing the opening three games of an ODI series with South Africa. The selectors decided to back experience in a total reversal of coach Greg Chappell's mission to inject fresh blood into the Indian cricket team and Ganguly was selected alongside VVS Laxman and Zaheer Khan, who had also been removed from the Test team recently. Ganguly and Zaheer both fared well. Ganguly emerged as the leading run getter for India in the recently concluded Test series with South Africa.

After being dropped from the side for almost eight months, Ganguly was recalled to the Test team for the series against South Africa in December 2006, after an injury to Yuvraj Singh. And after the recall, in his first warm up match against Rest of South Africa, he scored 83 runs when his team was in troublesome position at 69/5. This knock helped India win against Rest of South Africa.

He went on to play a crucial knock in the first test match, scoring 51 not out in the first innings in a low scoring game. India went on to win the match, its first win in South African soil for 17 years. Though India ended up losing the next two test matches and thus the series, Ganguly emerged as the top run scorer for India, with an aggregate of 214.

In the next series against Sri Lanka, his performance of 168 runs from 3 matches earned him the "Man of the Series Award". It was his first MoS Award in 6 years.

On January 12, 2007 after his successful Test comeback he was recalled for the ODI team, 15 months after he was dropped from the ODI side, as India played host to West Indies and Sri Lanka in back to back ODI tournaments. He staged an excellent comeback by scoring a match-winning 98 run knock in Nagpur on his return in the first ODI. Based on his performances (which included a Man of the Series Award in the Sri Lankan series). Ganguly was named to the World Cup Squad. He scored 66 runs against Bangladesh in India's opening game at the 2007 World Cup however India lost this match and were knocked out of the tournament in the group stage.

On December 12, 2007, Ganguly scored his maiden double century of his career while playing against Pakistan in the first innings of the third and final test match of the series. He was involved in a 300 run partnership for the 5th wicket along with Yuvraj Singh - a much needed partnership that saved India which was struggling at 61 for the fall of four wickets. He later went on to score 239 before being dismissed by Danish Kaneria.

Ganguly has been prolific in both Test and ODI cricket in the year 2007. He scored 1106 Test runs at an average of 61.44 (with three centuries and four fifties) in 2007 to become the second highest rungetter in Test matches of that year after Jacques Kallis. He is the fifth highest rungetter in 2007 in ODIs, where he scored 1240 runs at 44.28.

Controversies

County Cricket

Ganguly's County cricket career in England was not a success. In " The Wisden Cricketer" it was described as follows: "The imperious Indian - dubbed 'Lord Snooty' - deigned to represent Lancashire in 2000. At the crease it was sometimes uncertain whether his partner was a batsman or a batman being dispatched to take his discarded sweater to the pavilion or carry his kit bag. But mutiny was afoot among the lower orders. In one match Ganguly, after reaching his fifty, raised his bat to the home balcony, only to find it deserted. He did not inspire at Glamorgan or Northamptonshire either. At the latter in 2006 he averaged 4.80 from his four first-class appearances."

The Chappell - Ganguly controversy

His dispute with then coach Greg Chappell resulted in many headlines during 2005 and early 2006. Greg Chappell emailed the BCCI stating that Ganguly was unfit to lead India and that his "divide and rule" behaviour was damaging the team. This email was leaked to the media and resulted in huge backlash from Ganguly's fans. Eventually due to his poor form and differences with the coach he was stripped of his captaincy and dropped from the team. However 10 months later, during India's tour to South Africa, Ganguly was recalled after his middle order replacements Suresh Raina and Mohammad Kaif suffered poor form.

Shirt take-off at Lords

During the final match of the 2002 Natwest Trophy held in Lords after a stunning performance by team mates Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif, Sourav Ganguly took off his shirt in public and brandished it in the air to celebrate India's winning of the match. He was later strongly condemned for tarnishing the gentleman's game image of cricket and disrespecting Lords protocol. Ganguly said that he was only mimicking an act performed by the English all-rounder Andrew Flintoff during a tour of India.

Other controversies

Ganguly is an aggressive player and has often attracted controversy. He has attracted the wrath of match referrees quite a few times, the most severe of which was a ban for 6 matches by ICC match referee Clive Lloyd for slow over rates against Pakistan and therefore his tour to Sri Lanka for the Indian Oil Cup 2005 was uncertain. These circumstances led to Rahul Dravid being made captain for the tour. Later, Justice Albey Sachs reduced the punishment from 6 matches to 4, and this permitted Ganguly to join the team, but as a player and not captain. In his opening match he made the highest score of the side (51) taking (110) balls . He was again named captain for the Zimbabwe tour of August-September 2005. With this, he has captained India in the highest number of Tests (49).

During the 2003 World Cup final against Australia, Ganguly won the toss and decided to field. This decision raised eyebrows but Sourav remained confident that there would be moisture on the pitch that would help his bowlers, however the bowlers flopped and Sourav performed poorly with the bat. India went on to lose by 125 runs, a staggering defeat.

Ganguly's performance in the last couple of seasons has been really poor. This put his place in the Indian team under pressure. In the tour of Zimbabwe, in which he was newly reinstated as skipper, Ganguly ground out a painfully slow century, against what is regarded as one of the weakest bowling attacks in international cricket. During the match he told reporters that newly-appointed coach Greg Chappell had asked him to stand down as captain - a comment which Chappell later played down. However, forty-eight hours after saying that he respected the Indian captain and looked forward to working with him in the future, Chappell sent an email to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Both Ganguly and Chappell were summoned to a BCCI board meeting in which they agreed to work together for the good of the team. Rahul Dravid was appointed captain for the series against Sri Lanka and South Africa after Ganguly was not selected for the opening games due to injury. When the two series got over, Rahul Dravid was asked to continue as skipper.

On November 22, 2005, Ganguly stepped down as captain of Bengal cricket team after being replaced as captain of the Indian Test team. He played in the first two Test matches in the three-Test series against Sri Lanka. However, on December 14, he was controversially dropped, for the third Test at Ahmedabad, to make way for Wasim Jaffer, an opening batsman for Mumbai. Jaffer was picked by the selectors as they wished to build up a player selection pool with sufficient experience to succeed at international level.

Despite this, he retained his A-grade contract from the BCCI, in December 2005.

Following the drop, fans blocked roads and railway tracks in Kolkata, burning effigies of chief selector Kiran More and Indian coach Chappell, and the urban development minister of West Bengal, Asoke Bhattacharya, said Ganguly was a victim of the internal politics of the BCCI. Cricinfo editor Sambit Bal wrote in a commentary that this was in all probability ... the end of the road for him. However, it was announced on December 25, 2005 that he was selected as part of the Indian team to tour Pakistan. Kiran More cited his experience as the key reason, with Mohammed Kaif being dropped. He was in the playing XI in the Lahore and Karachi Tests, but was dropped for the Faisalabad match. He was unable to play in the England home series and the West Indies tour. He was also not selected for the following Tri-series in Sri Lanka. However, he was chosen amongst 30 probables for the ICC Champions Trophy after being left out in the dark for almost close to a year. Ganguly failed in the Challenger Trophy, however, managing less than 30 runs in two games, and so the chances of recall to the ODI side look bleak.

Ganguly later sent an email hitting out at his one time mentor saying that Jagmohan Dalmiya did not deserve to become CAB president as he had played with his career and that Ganguly was a victim of internal politics within the BCCI. This was in the backdrop of the CAB elections which Jagmohan Dalmiya won.

Career Centuries

One-Day Cricket

Runs	Opponent	Venue	Year	Result
113	Sri Lanka	Colombo (RPS)	1997/98	Sri Lanka
124	Pakistan	Dhaka	1997/98	India
105	New Zealand	Sharjah	1997/98	India
109	Sri Lanka	Colombo (RPS)	1997/98	India
107*	Zimbabwe	Bulawayo	1998/99	India
130*	Sri Lanka	Nagpur	1998/99	India
183	Sri Lanka	Taunton	1999/00	India
139	Zimbabwe	Nairobi	1999/00	India
153*	New Zealand	Gwalior	1999/00	India
100	Australia	Melbourne	1999/00	Australia
141	Pakistan	Adelaide	1999/00	India
105*	South Africa	Jamshedpur	1999/00	India
135*	Bangladesh	Dhaka	1999/00	India
141*	South Africa	Nairobi (Gymk)	2000/01	India
117	New Zealand	Nairobi (Gymk)	2000/01	New Zealand
144	Zimbabwe	Ahmedabad	2000/01	India
127	South Africa	Johannesburg	2001/02	South Africa
111	Kenya	Paarl	2001/02	India
117*	England	Colombo (RPS)	2002/03	India
112*	Namibia	Pietermaritzburg	2002/03	India
107*	Kenya	Cape Town	2002/03	India
111*	Kenya	Durban	2002/03	India

Test Cricket

Runs	Opponent	Venue	Year	Result
131	England	Lord's	1996	Drawn
136	England	Nottingham	1996	Drawn
147	Sri Lanka	Colombo (SSC)	1997/98	Drawn
109	Sri Lanka	Mohali	1997/98	Drawn
173	Sri Lanka	Mumbai	1997/98	Drawn
101*	New Zealand	Hamilton	1998/99	Drawn
101	New Zealand	Ahmedabad	1999/00	Drawn
136	Zimbabwe	Delhi	2001/02	India
128	England	Leeds	2002	India
100*	New Zealand	Ahmedabad	2003/04	Drawn
144	Australia	Brisbane	2003/04	Drawn
101	Zimbabwe	Bulawayo	2005	India
100	Bangladesh	Chittagong	2007	Drawn
102	Pakistan	Kolkata	2007	Drawn
239	Pakistan	Bangalore	2007	Drawn

Records

Test

• Scored a century on Test debut
• Scored a century in each of his first two Tests
• Captained India in a record 49 Test matches
• Led India to a record 21 Test wins

ODIs

• Second fastest player to reach 10,000, 11,000 ODI runs
• Fastest to reach multiples of 7,000, 8,000, 9,000 ODI Runs
• Hold the record of most 200+ ODI partnerships (6 times) along with Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting.
• Holds the record, shared with Sachin Tendulkar, for most 1st wicket ODI partnerships of 175+ runs (7 times).
• Holds the record, shared with Mahendra Singh Dhoni, for the second highest score by an Indian cricketer in an ODI — 183, against Sri Lanka in 1999.
• Held the record, shared with Sachin Tendulkar, for the highest first wicket partnership for India in a ODI match, 258, against Kenya in 2001. This record was bettered by Sri Lankan opening pair of Jayasuriya and Tharanga in 2006 at Headingley.
• Was involved in the first 300 run ODI partnership with Rahul Dravid.
• Sixth on the all time list with 31 man of the match awards.
• He is also the only player to win 4 consecutive man of the match awards in ODIs.
• India's most successful ODI captain.
• First Indian to score a ODI century against Australia in Australia.
• Highest ODI runs scorer in the world (in a calendar year) in 1997.
• Second highest ODI runs scorer in the world (in a calendar year) in 1998.
• Highest ODI runs scorer in the world (in a calendar year) in 1999.
• Highest ODI runs scorer in the world (in a calendar year) in 2000.
• Second highest ODI runs scorer for India (in a calendar year) in 2001.
• Second highest ODI runs scorer for India (in a calendar year) in 2002.
• Third highest ODI runs scorer for India (in a calendar year) in 2003.
• Third highest ODI runs scorer in the world (in a calendar year) in 2004.
• Third in the list of hitting maximum number of sixes in ODIs.
• Second in the list of highest number of centuries in a single calendar year ever. 7 centuries in 2000.

Career Statistics

Tests:

• One of 3 batsman who made tons in their 1st two Test innings.
• Ganguly was only the 3rd batsman in the world to score a century on debut at Lord's.
• His 131 still remains the highest by any batsman on his debut at Lord’s.

ODI's

• Second fastest after Viv Richards to reach 6,000 ODI Runs in 147 Innings and Sachin Tendulkar to 10,000 in 263 Innings

Man of the Series awards

3 Awards in Test cricket

#	Series	Season	Series Performance
1	India in England Test Series	1996	315 Runs (2 Matches, 3 Innings, 2x100); 37.5-4-125-6
2	Sri Lanka in India Test Series	1997/98	392 Runs (3 Matches, 4 Innings, 2x100, 1x50); 7-4-19-0
3	Pakistan in India Test Series	2007	534 Runs (3 Matches, 6 Innings, 1x200, 1x50); 37-10-77-4

7 Awards in ODI cricket

#	Series (Opponents)	Season	Series Performance
1	Sahara Friendship Series (Pakistan v/s India in Toronto)	1997	222 Runs (5 Matches & 5 Innings, 2x50); 48.5-8-160-15 (1x5 Wicket); 3 Catches
2	Pepsi Cup (Pakistan, Sri Lanka)	1998/99	278 Runs (5 Innings, 1x100, 2x50); 20-0-101-6; 2 Catches
3	DMC Cup (West Indies v/s India in Toronto)	1999	89 Runs (3 Innings, 1x50); 10-1-53-3; 1 Catch
4	New Zealand in India ODI Tour	1999/00	301 Runs (5 Innings, 1x100, 1x50); 18-3-95-2; 1 Catch
5	Zimbabwe in India ODI Tour	2000/01	264 Runs (4 Innings, 1x100, 1x50); 12-1-51-5 (1x5 Wicket)
6	India in West Indies ODI Tour	2002	136 Runs (3 Innings, 1x50); 3-0-20-0; 2 Catches
7	Sri Lanka in India ODI Tour	2006/07	168 Runs (3 Innings, 2x50); 8-0-43-1; 2 Catches

Man of the Match awards

5 Awards in Test cricket

S No	Opponent	Venue	Season	Match Performance
1	England	Trent Bridge, Nottingham	1996	1st Innings: 136 (17x4, 2x6); 19.5-2.71-3 2nd Innings: 48 (8x4)
2	Sri Lanka	Wankhede, Mumbai	1997/98	1st Innings: 173 (25x4, 2x6); 3-0-19-0 2nd Innings: 11 (1x4)
3	Sri Lanka	Asgiriya, Kandy	2001	1st Innings: 18 (2x4); 17-5-69-2 2nd Innings: 98 (15x4); 10-4-21-0
4	Australia	Gabba, Brisbane	2003/04	1st Innings: 144 (18x4); 1-0-8-0
5	Pakistan	Chinnaswamy, Bengaluru	2007	1st Innings: 239 (30x4); 10-2-20-1 2nd Innings: 91 (12x4)

31 Awards in ODI