Saurav Ganguly

Full name: Sourav Chandidas Ganguly
Nickname: Dada, Maharaj, Bengal Tiger, Prince of Calcutta, Lord Snooty
Born: July 8, 1972, Calcutta (now Kolkata), Bengal
Major teams: India, ACC Asian XI, Bengal, Glamorgan, Lancashire
Height: 5.11 ft
Education: St Xavier's College
Relations: Brother - Snehasish C Ganguly

Batting style: Left-hand bat
Bowling style: Right-arm medium

Test debut: England v India at Lord's - Jun 20-24, 1996

ODI debut: India v West Indies at Brisbane - Jan 11, 1992

Born on 8th July, 1972, Saurav Ganguly made his One Day International debut against Australia in 1992, and a Test debut versus England in 1996. He went on to become the captain of Indian cricket team from 2000 to 2005. He has led India to the World Cup 2003 finals, and holds the Indian captaincy record for the most Test victories. He was dropped from the national team in early 2006 due to conflicts with the then new coach Greg Chappell. He was recalled to the Indian Test side in December, to fill the position of a left handed batsman (Yuvraj Singh) who was injured. With reasonably consistant scores during the 2006 - 2007 Indian tour of South Africa, this could be remembered as his succesful comeback to international cricket

Some felt he couldn't play the bouncer, others swore that he was God on the off-side; some laughed at his lack of athleticism, others took immense pride in his ability to galvanise a side. Sourav Ganguly's ability to polarise opinion led to one of the most fascinating dramas in Indian cricket. Yet, nobody can dispute that he was India's most successful Test captain. When he took over the captaincy after the match-fixing exposes in 2000, he quickly proved to be a tough, intuitive and uncompromising leader. Under his stewardship India started winning Test matches away, and put together a splendid streak that took them all the way to the World Cup final in 2003.

His downfall began in Nagpur match ODI where he was withdrawn from the team. Then his consistent failures went side by side with the consistent failures of the Indian team, which was at its best in the upto 2003. The ban of 6 matches did the plot. Rahul Dravid became the captain which led to the remarkable revival of the team. The odd 20-30 runs didn't help Saurav and he was dropped from the team in October 2005. Seeing his then good performance in the English County Season and domestic cricket he was recalled to the team in December 2006. On January 12th 2007 he was recalled for the one day squad as well, where India play host to West Indies and Sri Lanka in a one day tournament. On January 21st, Ganguly hit a match winning 98 against the West Indies.
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