About Sourav Ganguly
Sourav Ganguly is a professional Indian cricketer, who was born on July 8, 1972 in Calcutta, Bengal. He was graduated from St Xavier’s College and lives in Behala, Kolkata with his wife Dona Roy. Nicknamed “Dada” and “Bengal Tiger” in the cricketing circles, he is a left-handed batsman and a right-arm medium-pace bowler.
Sourav Ganguly made his Test debut for India against England on June 20, 1996 at Lord’s and scored a century becoming the third cricketer to score a century, 131, on his debut at Lord’s after Harry Graham , an Australian batsman, and John Hampshire , a famous batsman of English county cricket. He made 136 in his next Test match at Trent Bridge, thereby becoming the third batsman to make a century in each of his first two innings, putting him at par with legends like Lawrence Rowe, a West Indian batsman and Alvin Kallicharran, an Indian batsman. Sourav Ganguly was back in the best of form when he scored the maiden double century of his career in the Test series against Pakistan on December 12, 2007. As of August 11, 2008, he has won 6 Man of the Match and 3 Man of the Series awards in Test cricket and has scored 6888 runs from 109 matches at an average of 41.74.
Sourav Ganguly made his One Day International (ODI) debut for India against the West Indies in Brisbane on January 11, 1992. He went on to win four consecutive Man of the Match awards in the Sahara Cup against Pakistan in 1997, becoming the only player to achieve this feat in ODI cricket. In January the following year, his brilliant score of 124 runs for India against Pakistan at the Independence Cup final in Dhaka fetched him the Man of the Match award and his team went on to lift the 1998 Independence Cup defeating Pakistan. Not new to setting records, Sourav Ganguly made headlines once again for scoring 183 off 158 balls against SriLanka in Taunton in the 1999 World Cup, making it the second highest score in World Cup History. He was a part of the Indian squad that played at the 2007 World Cup and emerged as the leading scorer for India against Bangladesh. Sourav Ganguly has scored 22 centuries in ODIs and has formed the best opening pair in One Day Cricket with Sachin Tendulkar with a record of amassing 26 centuries for the first wicket. He is the fourth player to cross 11,000 runs and the third player to cross 10,000 runs in ODI history. Sourav Ganguly also holds the record as the third player in the world for hitting the maximum number of sixes in ODIs. He holds the pride of being involved in most number of 200+ ODI partnerships and shares the record with Sachin Tendulkar for the maximum first-wicket ODI partnerships of 175+ runs. As of November 15, 2007, he has played in 311 ODI matches scoring 11,363 runs at an excellent strike rate of 73.70. Sourav Ganguly has also scalped 100 wickets, his best performance being 5 for 16 in ODI cricket and has 31 Man of the Match and 7 Man of the Series awards to his credit.
Sourav Ganguly was made captain of the Indian team in 2000 and led the team to the 2003 World Cup finals against Australia, in which the team won the Runners-up title. He has been the only Indian captain to win a Test series in Pakistan as of 2006 and has led the team to victory in 21 Test matches during his career as the captain. Holding the second position for hitting the highest number of centuries in a calendar year (2000), Sourav Ganguly is regarded as India’s most successful ODI captain.
Sourav Ganguly has represented Bengal, Lancashire, Glamorgan and Northamptonshire at the domestic level. As an honor for his formidable performances, Sourav Ganguly was conferred the Padmashri award in 2004 by the Government of India.
Sourav Ganguly was the undoubted choice to captain for the Kolkata Knight Riders team owned by Shah Rukh Khan for the inaugural season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2008. He was the most expensive player, who was signed for $1,092,500 and led the team to a 140-run victory in the match against Bangalore Royal Challengers in April 2008. Sourav Ganguly went onto score his second T20 half-century against Rajasthan Royals in May that year. His brilliant performance for the team won him the Man of the Award in the matches against Royal Challengers and Deccan Chargers on May 8 and 11, 2008, that was won by the Kolkata Knight Riders. Sourav Ganguly has played for the team in 12 matches scoring 263 runs, his highest score being 91 in the 2008 IPL inaugural season.