Saurav Chandidas Ganguly is a legendary figure in Indian cricket often known as "Dada" who has offered tremendous service to Indian Cricket Team during his playing days. Currently, he is appointed as CEO of Cricket Association of Bengal after the death of Jagmohan Dalmiya and President of the Editorial Board with Wisden India. One of the few controversial characters of Indian Cricket and often landed up with some issues or the other. He made his ODI debut against Australia in 1992 but was dropped immediately after. He had to wait for another 4 years before making a sensational Test debut against England in 1996. In between he made prolific contribution with the bat in the domestic competitions. He scored heavily in the Ranji Trophy andDuleep Trophy. Following this, he went on to become one of the most dependable players for the team and eventually, took over the captaincy from Sachin Tendulkar in 2000. Sourav Ganguly holds the record for most Test wins by an Indian captain but a major slump in from and a much publicized spat with Coach Greg Chappell led to his sacking in 2005, and almost put an end to his cricketing career. But against all odds he made a come back and made a glorious run until retirement.

Career of Saurav Ganguly
Ganguly was a natural right-hander but converted himself into a left-handed batsman at a young age. He also bowls decent right arm medium pace. He has many nicknames, `Bengal Tiger`, `Prince of Calcutta` and `Dada` to name some. For opponents, he is `Lord Snooty` due to his aggressive behaviour. He has the rare distinction of having made a Test century at Lords at debut, Harry Graham and John Hampshire being the only others.

"Dada" was a prolific batsman with a fine touch. He was referred to as the "God of off-side" by Rahul Dravid, because of his outstanding stroke making abilities in the off side. His timing was relentless, and won many hearts with his magnificent stroke play right throughout his career. He has tremendous record both as a Test and ODI player for India. In fact, he has a highest score of 183 in ODIs scored against Sri Lanka at Taunton in the 1999 World Cup. He played some superb knocks for India throughout his career and made himself and the country proud. He has staggering ODI statistics as an India player. In 311 matches he has scored 11363 runs at an average of 41.02 with 22 century and 72 half century. In Test matches too his performances stand out. He scored 7212 runs in 113 Test matches for India with an average of 42.17. He has 16 centuries and 35 half centuries. He scored a double hundred too: a score of 239 against Pakistan at home. With his bowling, Saurav has taken 32 wickets in Test and 100 in ODIs.

As a batsman, Ganguly has won India many matches and was a genuine match winner during his days. As an opening combination, Ganguly and Tendulkar were highly successful in one day scoring 5,308 runs at an average of 45.37.

In 2000, Ganguly took over the captaincy not long after the match-fixing saga had rocked both Indian cricket and world cricket as a whole. Saurav Ganguly transformed a team of potential match-winners into a winning outfit during his stint as skipper. Under his captaincy, India attained great heights and we started winning test matches abroad. India beat Australia in the Test series 2-1 at home in 2001, drew 1-1 with England in England in 2002 and went on to win the Nattwest one-day trophy defeating the same team in the season, where Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif played a wonderful innings. Dada led India to the finals of the Mini World Cup where we were joint winner along with Sri Lanka, in 2002. Better things followed when India made an extraordinary recovery to make it to the finals of the 2003 World Cup where they eventually went down to Australia. But India had some sought of revenge when they managed to hold Australia to a 1-1 draw in the Test series Down Under. This was Steve Waugh`s farewell series. He went out with a blaze scoring 80 in his final innings but India retained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy on virtue of winning the previous series against the two sides.

Critics did try to down play India`s performance by pointing out that the performance came in the absence of Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee and Shane Warne. But Ganguly silenced all the critics by defeating a full strength Pakistan side in Pakistan in both the Test and the one-day series. This was the highpoint of Ganguly`s captaincy but also turned out to be the end of glorious phase in Indian cricket. When Australia toured India in 2004, Ganguly pulled himself out of the match at the last minute in the Nagpur Test. Many felt he was scared to play on a green top. As it turned out, India lost the Test comfortably and went on to lose the series too.

Ganguly did score a century when India last toured Zimbabwe but his spat with Greg Chappell made all the headlines. The word going around was that Chappell did not want him in the side and soon Ganguly fell out of contention with the selectors. His dropping led to massive protests in his hometown Kolkata with effigies of chief selector Kiran More and Indian coach Chappell being burnt. But it was not good enough to make the selectors change their mind. Ganguly is presently representing Northamptonshire in English County cricket.

After getting dropped in 2005 after the Zimbabwe tour, few would have thought Saurav would make a comeback. But he did make a comeback in 2006-07 tour of South Africa and showed tremendous courage and grit in that tour. He was the highest scorer in that tour. After the South African tour, the next one year was quite fruitful. We retired from all forms of the game in 2008 after the Australian series at home, where we scored two centuries in four match series.

Life After Retirement for Saurav Ganguly
After his international career he was involved in IPL (Indian Premier League) as well. For the first three years he played for KKR (Kolkata Knight Riders), where he led the team in first and third edition, and then he signed a two years contract with PWI (Pune Warriors India). He is also involved with regional vernacular channels where he hosts quiz shows like "Dada Giri" and "Key Hobe Kotipoti". He is also a co owner of Kolkata Games and Sports Pvt. Ltd, which owns Atletico de Kolkata. He is presently involved with his freelance commentary assignments for ESPN and NEO Sports.

Saurav Ganguly in Indian Super League
Saurav Ganguly along with Harshavardhan Neotia, Sanjiv Goenka, Utsav Parekh, and Spanish La Liga side Atlético de Madrid, is also the co-owner of Atletico de Kolkata, a franchise of the Indian Super League, which won the inaugural season in 2014. In 2016, Atletico de Kolkata became the winner by defeating Kerala Blasters Football Club.

Batting and Fielding Averages of Saurav Ganguly