Bio

Sourav Chandidas Ganguly is a former Indian test cricketer, and captain of the Indian national team. As of October 2008, he was India's most successful Test captain to date, winning 21 tests out of 49 tests he captained and leading India into the 2003 World Cup finals.

An aggressive captain, Ganguly is credited with having nurtured the careers of many young players who played under him. The left-handed Ganguly was a prolific One Day International batsman, with over 11,000 ODI runs to his credit. Despite ODI success, his Test place was often lost to younger players towards the later stages of his career. On October 7 2008, Ganguly announced that the Test series against Australia starting that month would be his last.

Ganguly played his last first-class match on 21 December 2008. The youngest son of Chandidas and Nirupa Ganguly, Ganguly was born on 8 July 1972 in Kolkata. His father ran a flourishing print business and was one of the richest men in Kolkata. He had a luxurious childhood and was nicknamed the Maharaja. Though he was asked to concentrate on his studies and not to play cricket, he was inspired to do so by his brother Snehasish Ganguly, an accomplished left-handed batsman for Bengal. Though he was actually 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. After he scored a century against the Orissa U-15 side, he was made captain of St Xavier's School's cricket team, where several of his teammates complained against what they perceived to be his arrogance.

Following a prolific Ranji season in 1990-91,Ganguly made his One Day International debut for India against West Indies in 1992, and scored three runs. He was dropped immediately since he was perceived to be "arrogant" and his attitude towards the game was openly questioned. He toiled away in domestic cricket, scoring heavily in the 1993-94 and 1994-95 seasons Following an innings of 171 in the 1995-96 Duleep Trophy, he was recalled to the national side for the tour of England in 1996 amidst intense media scrutiny. He made his Test debut at Lord's alongside Rahul Dravid, in what was umpire Dickie Bird's last Test. He scored a century, becoming only the third cricketer to score a century on debut at Lord's, after Harry Graham and John Hampshire.

Andrew Strauss and Matt Prior have since accomplished this feat, but his 131 still remains the highest by any batsman on his debut at Lord's. In the next Test match at Trent Bridge he made 136, thus becoming only the 3rd batsman to make a century in each of his first two innings (after Lawrence Rowe and Alvin Kallicharran). He shared a 255 run stand with Sachin Tendulkar, which became at that time the highest partnership for India against any country for any wicket outside India. 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. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2004, one of India's highest awards. Ganguly was named in the squad for the 2007 Cricket World Cup. He was the leading scorer for India in their first round defeat against Bangladesh. After India were knocked out of the tournament in the group stage, there were reports of a rift between certain members of the Indian team and their coach Greg Chappell.

Ganguly, allegedly, ignored instructions from the team management to score quickly. After Sachin Tendulkar issued a statement saying that what hurt the team most was that "the coach has questioned our attitude", Chappell decided not to renew his contract with the Indian team. On 12 December 2007, Ganguly scored his maiden double century of his career while playing against Pakistan in the first innings of the third and final Test match of the series. He was involved in a 300 run partnership for the 5th wicket along with Yuvraj Singh - a much needed partnership that saved India which was struggling at 61 for the fall of four wickets. He later went on to score 239 before being dismissed by Danish Kaneria.

On 18 April 2008, Ganguly led the Kolkata Knight Riders team owned by Shah Rukh Khan in the IPL Twenty20 cricket match to a 140 run victory over Bangalore Royal Challengers led by Rahul Dravid and owned by Vijay Mallya. Ganguly opened the innings with Brendan McCullum and scored 10 runs while his partner Brendan McCullum remained unbeaten blasting his way to a record 158* runs in 73 balls. On 1 May in a game between the Knight Riders and the Rajasthan Royals, Ganguly made his highest score of the season and his second T20 half century, scoring 51 runs off of 39 balls at a strike rate of 130.76. In his innings, Ganguly hit four 4s and two sixes, topping the scorers list for the Knight Riders. Ganguly has been prolific in both Test and ODI cricket in the year 2007. He scored 1106 Test runs at an average of 61.44 (with three centuries and four fifties) in 2007 to become the second highest run-scorer in Test matches of that year[50] after Jacques Kallis. He is the fifth highest rungetter in 2007 in ODIs, where he scored 1240 runs at 44.28. On 7 October 2008, Ganguly announced that the Test series against Australia starting in October 2008 would be his last and stated "to be honest, I didn't expect to be picked for this series". Ganguly played in every game of the four-Test series, repaying the selectors faith in him by amassing 324 runs at an average of 54.00. In his last innings, he was dismissed for duck off just one ball. India won the series 2-0, and in the final match, with India needing one wicket to secure a victory, the India captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, allowed Ganguly to lead the side in the field one last time.