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 - forging a winning unit from a bunch of talented, but directionless, individuals - and nobody can argue about him being one of the greatest one-day batsmen of all time. Despite being a batsman who combined grace with surgical precision in his strokeplay, his career had spluttered to a standstill before being resurrected by a scintillating hundred on debut at Lord's in 1996. Later that year, he was promoted to the top of the order in ODIs and, along with Sachin Tendulkar, formed one of the most destructive opening pairs in history.
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. Later that year, in Australia, an unexpected and incandescent hundred at Brisbane set the tone for the series - Steve Waugh's last - where India fought the world's best team to a standstill. Victory in Pakistan turned him into a cult figure but instead of being a springboard for greater t
RE:SOURAV GANGULY
by N Venugopal on Nov 25, 2007 11:19 PM Permalink
Everything was fine until the day, when he and Tendulkar with the help of Harbajan singh try to undermine the captaincy of Dravid, not to get get him the crown of world cup in SA, loosing the first match to Bangaldesh!!!
RE:SOURAV GANGULY
by subho on Nov 25, 2007 11:46 PM Permalink
HEY VENU IDLY . DONT TALK RUBBISH . DRAVID IS A STUPID SPINELESS CAPTAIN . ANIL WOULD HAVE BEEN A MUCH BETTER CHOICE . BUT THANKS TO POLITICS IN SOUTH . OTHER THAN IDLY AND RASSAM DONT YOU SEE ANYTHING ELSE .
RE:SOURAV GANGULY
by veerapan on Nov 25, 2007 10:53 PM Permalink
You are absoluteley correct Mr.Takiona Muteaasi from Japan.......Thanks a lot...God bless you....
RE:SOURAV GANGULY
by Sudhamsu Josyam on Nov 25, 2007 11:05 PM Permalink
What nonsense, you just copy pasted the text from the Cricinfo.com website. Try not being a copy cat.
