Sourav Chandidas Ganguly

Sourav Chandidas Ganguly (born 8 July 1972), is an Indian cricketer. Ganguly lives in Behala 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.

Early Life

The youngest son of Chandidas and Nirupa Ganguly, Ganguly was born on July 8, 1973 in Kolkata. His father, who would go onto to be the treasurer and secretary of the Cricket Association of Bengal , ran a flourishing print business and was one of the richest men in Kolkata. He had a luxurious childhood, living with over 45 relatives in a joint family in their palatial bungalow in the Kolkata suburb of Behara. As a child, he was nicknamed 'Maharaja', meaning 'king'.Though he was asked to concentrate on his studies and not play cricket, he was inspired to do so by his brother Snehasish Ganguly, an accomplished left handed batsman for Bengal. Though he was acutally right handed, he batted left handed so that he could use his brother's equipment. After he showed some promise as a batsman, he was enrolled in a cricket academy. An indoor multi-gym and concrete wicket was built at home for him and his brother, and he would often watch cricket videos, especially those of David Gower, his hero. After he scored a century against the Orissa U-15 side, he was made captain of the prestigous St Xavier's School's cricket team. His stint there was controversial as several of his teammates complained against his arrogance.

Ascenion to capatincy

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.