Sourav Ganguly

Victory in Pakistan - India's first away from home in 11 years - made Sourav Ganguly India's most successful Test captain ever, completing a remarkable turnaround for a man who was summarily jettisoned after playing only a bit-part role on his first tour of Australia in 1991-92. And it was in Australia that his leadership scaled new heights a dozen years later, as a brilliant century in the opening Test at Brisbane set the tone for a series - Steve Waugh's last - where India fought the world's best team to a standstill. Ganguly combines amazing grace and surgical precision in his strokeplay, especially on the off side, but his career had spluttered to a standstill before being resurrected by a scintillating hundred on debut at Lord's in 1996. When he took over the captaincy after the match-fixing exposes in 2000, he quickly proved to be a tough, intuitive and uncompromising leader, traits best illustrated in the historic series against Australia in 2001, when he made light of personal travails to lead India to a famous victory. Under his stewardship, with John Wright providing inputs off the field, India started winning Test matches away, and put together a splendid eight-match winning streak that took them all the way to the World Cup final in 2003. Despite having been his team's most consistent one-day batsmen over the previous three seasons, he also relinquished the opening slot to accomodate Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar, and several gutsy efforts in Test cricket were none-too-subtle reminders to critics who insisted that he was deeply vulnerable against the short ball. Effective with his medium-pace on seaming tracks, Ganguly will most be remembered though for having forged a winning unit from a bunch of talented, but directionless, individuals.

Full name	Sourav Chandidas Ganguly
Born	July 8, 1972, Calcutta (now Kolkata), Bengal
Major teams	India, ACC Asian XI, Bengal, Glamorgan, Lancashire
Batting style	Left-hand bat
Bowling style	Right-arm medium

Career statistics
Test debut	England v India at Lord's - Jun 20-24, 1996
ODI debut	India v West Indies at Brisbane - Jan 11, 1992
First-class span	1989/90 - 2005/06
List A span	1989/90 - 2005/06

Sourav Ganguly's Records

Test

ODIs