SAURAV "DADA" GANGULY -- IN STATS

Full name : Sourav Chandidas Ganguly
Born : July 8, 1972, Kolkata
Age : 35 Years
Major teams :

India, Asia XI, Asia XI, Bengal, Glamorgan, Lancashire

Batting style : Left-hand bat
Bowling style : Right-arm medium
Height : 5 ft 11 in
Education : St Xavier's College

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 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 things, it was the peak of a slippery slope.

After the spat with Greg Chappel & being sacked out of the Indian Team, Dada did what he could do best. Get back to the nets & practice hard & work on his fitness. My earlier blog focussed on the sensational comeback of DADA, this will further focus on the fantastic 2007 he had.

After the early exit from the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies, Team India headed to England for a 3 test series & also a 7 match one day series.

Dada had a quite test series with scores of 34 , 24, 79, 33, 37, 8, along with 2 wickets to his kitty.

In the ODIs that followed DADA & Sachin once again proved why they are THE BEST opening pair in World Cricket. DADA scored 3 fifties to continue his good run and also snapped up a few wickets. During the series, DADA made his 300th ODI appearance at Leeds. The 300th ODI was a special one as DADA won the MAN OF THE MATCH award for his all round performance.

Next came Pakistan to India & the series saw Dada smash record books. Dada scored his first ever Test Match Century in front of his 60000+ home crowd. As DADA said, "IT WAS A PRESSURE OFF HIS SHOULDERS." .

The first test match at Delhi saw DADA the bowler take over DADA the batsman. With the conditions perfect for his style of bowling, Dada snapped up 3 crucial wickets.

Rameez Raja would call the corridor of uncertainty as "THE CORRIDOR OF SAURAV GANGULY"

The second test at kolkata was Dada's 98th Test Match. A century at home ground was due. But not anymore. A stylish, & yet subdued Dada scored a magnificent century in front of his fans. At 12.55pm on December 1, time stood still for a moment in this laid-back eastern city. When Sourav Ganguly pushed Danish Kaneria just wide of mid-off and ran a single, hands aloft in the air, the 50,000-strong crowd at Eden Gardens had finally witnessed something more than a decade in the making. All through his career Ganguly has had a sense of occasion, an uncanny knack of claiming what is rightfully his.

The third test at Bangalore, Dada's 99th test match was even more classy & successful. Relishing the bangalore wicket Dada
not only managed a rescue act with Yuvraj Singh But in the process also scored his FIRST EVER DOUBLE TON in Test Cricket. He made a solid 239.

Dada & Yuvraj made 300 runs in just 65.2 ovs at a run rate of 4.59.

The roof of Chinnaswamy stadium developed cracks with cries of DADA..DADA.

In the process, he also shared a 179 run partnership with Irfan Pathan.
Very deservingly, he was awarded the MAN OF THE MATCH for the 3rd test & also was THE MAN OF THE SERIES. He attributed the success to batting at No. 4. "I got to bat at No. 4 in this series and it helped me. I have batted lower down the order for a lot of time and Rahul [Dravid] used to bat at No. 3 and Sachin [Tendulkar] came at four. As a result, I had to bat at five or sometimes six and I missed quite a few hundreds because we did not have wicketkeeper-batsmen like Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Dinesh Karthik earlier. These guys support people batting at five or six. But me and [VVS] Laxman suffered in terms of getting hundreds" Said DADA

2007 has been his most successful year statistically & the numbers showed them all. In 10 tests, he scored a mammoth 1106 runs at an avg of 61.44. The highest score being 239. In Odis he scored 12 fifties & also completed his tally of 100 ODI wickets.

To sum up, let me bring in all possible statistics of DADA in the year 2007, which I would call THE YEAR OF THE ROYAL BENGAL TIGER.

TESTS IN 2007.

MATCHES RUNS AVERAGE HUNDREDS HIGHEST SCORE
10 1106 61.44 3 239

ODIs IN 2007.

MATCHES RUNS AVERAGE HUNDREDS FIFTIES HIGHEST SCORE
32 1240 44.28 0 12 98