Former India skipper Sourav Ganguly, who was considered `God of off-side` by former India head coach and his teammate Rahul Dravid, made many spectacular contributions within the discipline of cricket and continues to take action as Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Delhi Capitals` Director of Cricket.
Ganguly`s potential to polarise opinion led to one of the fascinating dramas in Indian cricket. However, there isn’t a denying that he was India`s most profitable Test captain, main a successful staff out of a bunch of gifted gamers and that he stays among the best one-day batters in historical past. Even although he was a batter who might play with each grace and surgical accuracy, his profession had come to a grinding halt till he struck an excellent hundred on his debut at Lord`s in 1996. He was elevated to the highest of the ODI order later that yr, and he and Sachin Tendulkar collectively constituted one of the potent opening combos in historical past.
Ganguly was famous for his distinct management type all through his time on the pitch. In the summer time of 1996, he made his Test debut towards England, incomes the nickname `Dada`. He rapidly made headlines after scoring a century in his first Test at Lord`s and the `Prince of Kolkata` then went on to smash a ton within the second Test, changing into the third batter in historical past to make 100 in every of his first two innings.
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In 2000, the Team India camp obtained trapped in a match-fixing scandal. Ganguly was then appointed the captain of the facet, the place he began grooming new expertise.
Ganguly led India to the finals of the 2000 ICC Knockout Trophy for the primary time. Another Team India milestone got here in 2001 when the Ganguly-led facet defeated Australia 2-1 within the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
The Australian staff, captained by Steve Waugh, challenged India to comply with on within the sequence, however VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid staged one of many biggest comebacks in Indian cricket historical past.
The former India captain`s most memorable second was positively when he stripped off his shirt on the Lord`s balcony when India famously beat England from the jaws of defeat within the Natwest Trophy finals in 2002.
Ganguly additionally led India to the World Cup finals in 2003, the place they narrowly misplaced to Australia within the championship sport. In 2004, he additionally oversaw an ODI and Test sequence in Pakistan. The Test sequence triumph was India`s first on Pakistani soil.
`Dada` additionally had a memorable spat with then-coach Greg Chappell in 2005-6, after the `Prince of Kolkata` was neglected of the Team India squad. Ganguly, however, labored his method again into the staff and recorded a fifty-plus rating in Johannesburg.
He final performed a Test towards Australia in Nagpur in 2008. He performed within the Indian Premier League (IPL) till 2012, when he retired from home cricket. `Dada` performed 113 Tests and 311 One-Day Internationals for India. In his worldwide profession, the left-handed batsman amassed 18,575 runs throughout all codecs.
Ganguly is likely one of the essential causes for the emergence of the concept of day-night Test cricket in India. His efforts paid off as India performed its first-ever day-night Test match towards Bangladesh on the Eden Gardens in 2019.
He had led India in 195 matches throughout all codecs and managed to win 97 matches out of these. The former skipper then went on to develop into the President of the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) and is a former President of the BCCI.
Source: www.mid-day.com
