Sourav Ganguly's 51st birthday: Re-visit his cricketing legacy

Former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly who was regarded as God of offside by Rahul Dravid made many spectacular contributions in the field of cricket and continued to do so as Board of Control for Cricket in India BCCI PresidentAs the lefthanded batter turned 51 today lets turn some pages of his almost twodecadelong careerGanguly during his stint on the field has been known for his unique leadership style Popularly known as Dada he made his Test debut against England in the summer of 1996 He immediately made headlines as he went on to score a century in his maiden Test at Lords Ganguly smashed a century in his second Test Thus he became the only third batsman to score a century in each of his first two inningsThe Prince of Kolkata then announced himself in the ODI format as he won four consecutive Man of the Match awards in 1997 against PakistanIn the 1999 World Cup Ganguly played a knock of 183 runs against Sri Lanka and was involved in a 318run partnership with Rahul DravidIn 2000 the Team India camp got trapped in a matchfixing scandal Ganguly was then appointed the captain of the side where he started grooming new talent Ganguly first led India to the finals of the 2000 ICC Knockout Trophy In 2001 another Team India achieved another milestone as the Gangulyled side defeated Australia 21 in the BorderGavaskar Trophy In the series India was asked to follow on by the Steve Waughled Australian side but VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid scripted one of the greatest comebacks for the Indian teamAlso Read When skip Sourav Ganguly pulled a fast one on teen Yuvraj SinghThe most memorable moment of Ganguly is undoubtedly when he took off his jersey at the Lords balcony when India famously beat England from the jaws of defeat in the finals of the 2002 Natwest TrophyThe 48yearold Ganguly had also guided India to the finals of the 2003 World Cup and the side just fell short in the summit clash against Australia He also led an ODI and Test series in Pakistan in 2004 The Test series victory was a first for India on Pakistani soilGanguly also had a very infamous tussle in 20056 with thencoach Greg Chappell after the Prince of Kolkata was excluded from the Team India squad However Ganguly paved his way back to the side and registered a fiftyplus score in JohannesburgHe played his last Test in 2008 against Australia in Nagpur He continued playing in the Indian Premier League IPL but hung his boots from domestic cricket in 2012Dada had a career consisting of 113 Tests and 311 ODIs for India The lefthanded batsman scored 18575 runs across all formats in his international career Ganguly is one of the main reasons for the emergence of the idea of daynight Test cricket in India His efforts paid off as India played its firstever daynight Test match against Bangladesh at the Eden Gardens in 2019He had led India in 195 matches across all formats and managed to win 97 matches out of those The former skipper then went on to become the President of the Cricket Association of Bengal CAB and later the President of the BCCIRanked among one of the best captains in Indian cricket history Ganguly groomed several young talents and gave chances to them in the Indian team during his captaincy who later went on to become greats of the game including Virender Sehwag Harbhajan Singh Yuvraj Singh and Zaheer Khan