Ganguly @ 49: A Revolutionary Captain who changed the face of Indian Cricket

The modern era of Indian Cricket features three iconic captains, in the form of Sourav Ganguly, MS Dhoni, and Virat Kohli. The latter two are directly/indirectly influenced by the revolutionary leadership of the former. Sourav is the first skipper to bring a lot of aggression to the team in terms of spirit and tactics. He successfully led India to the World Cup finals in 2003. Fondly called Dada, Ganguly celebrates his 49th birthday today.

Ganguly made his international debut in 1992 with an ODI against West Indies. Soon, he was dropped from the team for being ‘arrogant,’ as perceived by many. Then, Ganguly shaped himself as a person and a player and started proving his talent in domestic tournaments. It was the 1996 England tour that gave a breakthrough for Dada. He scored a century in his debut Test played in Lord’s. Since then, he became a regular member of the Indian team.

Ganguly took over the responsibilities of captaincy after the match-fixing issue happened in 2000. That decision changed the fate of the Indian Cricket Team in the coming years. Ganguly revolutionized the team and nurtured many youngsters under his leadership. Virender Sehwag, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammed Kaif, Zaheer Khan, and Ashish Nehra are some of the iconic cricketers who played under the guidance of Ganguly.

He led India to an iconic Test series win against Australia in 2001. Indian won 11 out of 28 overseas tests under his captaincy. We still remember the heroics of the Indian team in the Natwest ODI tri-series final played against England in 2002.

In his cricketing career, Ganguly played 311 ODIs and 113 Tests and scored 11,163 and 7212 runs respectively. He is still the second-highest run-scorer for India in the ODI format. He is the third fastest batsman to reach 10,000 runs in ODIs. Dada also holds the record of scoring the highest individual score for India in the Men’s World Cup (183 runs). Ganguly never played an International T20 match but represented Kolkata Knight Riders and Pune Warriors India in the IPL.

After serving as the President of Cricket Association of Bengal for some time, Ganguly took over the charges of BCCI in October 2019. He is the 39th President of BCCI. Most of his tenure as a president is affected by COVID-19 but Ganguly managed to lead the board successfully in the tough times. We wish him a very happy birthday and waiting to see him in his efficient best for the Indian Cricket Team as the president of BCCI.

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