Surprising Facts About Your Favorite ‘Dada’ Sourav Ganguly

During his tenure as captain from 2000 to 2005 he became the most successful test captain with a record of 21 Test victories from 49 matches he lead. He was credited with changing the face of Indian team by winning matches and tournaments that was lacking previously. He recognized and supported many young talents and was a big influence on the budding young generation of cricketers. Here are some interesting facts:

1. He became the President of BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) in 2019. Prior to that he was the president of Cricket Association of Bengal from 2015 to 2019.
2. He is the only player from the world of cricket to have won 4 consecutive MoM awards (Man of the Match) in One Day Internationals. He achieved this feat during the series between Pakistan and India in Canada from 14 September to 21 September, 1997.
3. During Australia’s tour of India in 2001, he was late for the toss on 4 occasions out of the 5 match ODI series, which agitated the opponent captain Steve Waugh. In the fourth ODI he came for the toss without his proper playing attire which was considered ungentlemanly.
4. After his debut in the England Tour, he eloped with his childhood sweetheart Dana and secretly married her as both the families were not in talking terms.
5. Being a right handed player, he practiced left handed so that he could use his brother’s cricket gears. When Sourav was in 10th, his elder brother Snehasish Ganguly was already an established cricket player for the Bengal cricket team.
6. In his early cricketing years at the school level, he refused to do the twelfth man duties as he deemed those activities to be below his social status. The duties included arranging equipments and drinks for his teammates as well as delivering messages to players in the ground.
7. Ganguly enjoyed a luxurious childhood and was also nicknamed “Maharaja” meaning great king. His father Chandidas Ganguly ran a successful print business, and was one of the richest people, in the city of Kolkata.
8. He made his One Day International debut against West Indies in 1992 and scored only 3 runs. He was subsequently dropped from the squad citing arrogant attitude. He later denied those claims.
9. He made his test match debut at Lords Cricket Ground, London, England, along with his team mate Rahul Dravid in 1995, in the 2^nd test match between India and England. He scored 131 runs where as the other debutant Dravid scored 95.
10. He became the third batsman after Harry Graham and John Hampshire to score a century at Lords in a debut. Andrew Strauss and matt Proir have become 4^th and the 5^th player to do so, However Ganguly’s 131 still remains the highest score by a debutant at Lords.
11. During an ODI match against Sri Lanka in the 1999 World Cup in England, he scored 183 from 158 balls, which became the 2^nd highest score in an ODI and the highest by an Indian. The highest ODI score at that time was 194 by Saeed Anwar from Pakistan.
12. He is one among the few players to achieve a rare feat of scoring 10000 runs along with 100 wickets and 100 catches. The other players are Sachin Tendulkar , Jack Kallis, Sanath Jayasuriya and Tillakaratne Dilshan.
13. Being a Football fan he was a captain of a Football school team before shifting his career to cricket. However his mother Nirupa Ganguly was not supportive of him showing his interest in sports instead of academics.
14. He became a co-owner of a franchise “Atletico De Kolkata” in Indian Super League, along with Harshavardhan Neotia, Sanjiv Goenka and Utsav Parekh. His Franchise won the inaugural season in 2014.