Sourav Ganguly

One of the greatest Indian cricket captains of all time, the Bengal Tiger Sourav Ganguly bid adieu to international cricket recently. A sojourn which lasted through more than a decade made him evolve as one of the legendary Indian cricketers who proved his mettle throughout the world. If we take a peek into the record books, Sourav happens to be the only Indian captain after Kapil Dev who has managed to take the Indian side to the final of the 50 overs ODI World Cup. This great milestone was achieved back in the year 2003 when India reached the World Cup Final played in South Africa but lost to the mighty Australians.

Sourav also represented India in 113 Test Matches and 311 ODI's and the numbers surely speaks for themselves. The youngster from Bengal started out in the year 1996 when he slammed a Test hundred in Lords against the English pace battery, his debut test match. Coming from an affluent family in Kolkata, cricket remained the first love of Sourav from an early age. This century was followed by another marvellous one in Trent Bridge which sealed his place in the Indian squad.

But this was just the beginning of a grand and illustrious career. At that stage nobody even the greatest critics of the game could not comprehend, that he will take the mantle of captaincy in the future days. Slowly after proving himself in the Test arena, the stylish left hander made inroads into the ODI format and kept on dominating the bowlers with ease. His fantastic batting display continued as he played some hard-hitting cricket and rampaged severely. He became a force to reckon with in international cricket. The medium pace bowling which he did with a little bit of swing to confuse the batsmen also came in as a handy addition.

After the match fixing scandal which rocked the scene of global cricket in 2000, Sourav received the honours of being selected in the coveted post of captainship. He started to enjoy the privilege of enormous media attention and became a very popular figure in the country. He led from the front and won many games for the nation with the sheer brilliance of his captaincy skills.

He instilled the spirit of Team India among the young Indian cricketers and acted as their mentor and guide. But inspite of his good performances, a certain section of the cricketing fraternity could not accept his sudden ascent and he was victimized. The selectors dropped him on several occasions and consequently, the captaincy was taken away. But Sourav proved them wrong and came with a bang. He reestablished his position in the side as a senior batsman and performed with authority. There has been some controversies which dogged his phenomenal career. The spat with Aussie great Greg Chappell in the Zimbabwe tour and his outburst at Lord after taking his shirt off by winning the Natwest trophy remained in the headlines.

The last Test match of Sourav was in the year 2008 against the great Aussies in Mohali where he hanged up his boots. He received a grand farewell from his team- mates and fans who blessed him for his memorable service to Indian cricket.



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