Happy birthday Sourav Ganguly, the captain who gave Team India the belief to win overseas

Photo: Twitter/@ICC

Sourav Ganguly, famously known as 'Dada', was the first face of Indian cricket to give the team a belief to win matches overseas.

The 'Prince of Kolkata', who turned 48 on Wednesday (July 8, 2020) was the game-changer for the Indian side, mainly in the early 2000s.

Dada took over the captaincy when the Indian cricket was going through a huge turmoil, on and off-field.

Ganguly managed to take the team out from the shadow of infamous match-fixing controversies. 

Now working as the BCCI President, Ganguly under his captaincy had given the opportunity to India's some of the greatest match-winners like Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan and Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

Under Ganguly, the 'Men in Blue' played 146 ODI matches. They won 76 matches, and lost 65 matches, while 5 matches went into a no result. Dada's ODI's win percentage was at 53.90.

He also guided the team in the white jersey to 21 wins, of the 49 matches he led. His Test side lost 13 and tied/drew 15 matches, making his Test win percentage 42.85.

If we look at Dada's away Test and ODI records, he led the ODI team to 24 wins out of the 51 away games, lost in the same number of matches and tied/no result in 3.

While in the away Tests, Dada captained in 28 matches and won 11 and lost 10. His team drew in 7 red-ball matches.

He is regarded as one of the best captains that have led the Indian cricket team.

One of our favourite memories of Dada in a foreign land was of the 2002 Natwest Series. His bare-chested celebrations after India's rather improbable win against England remains firmly etched in the minds of millions of cricketing fans across the world. 

A year later, the Indian team also managed to reach the final of World Cup 2003 and gave Indians a hope to lift the cup after 1983. Although, the 'toughest Australian team ever' didn't let Dada take the trophy home.

In India's tour of Australia 2003-04, he drew 1-1, while in Pakistan, Dravid held the Test series at 1-1 and Dada captained the side in the decider match and took the series 2-1.

Sourav Ganguly's records:

Talking about Dada's batting, Rahul Dravid had once said, "On the offside, first there is God, then Sourav Ganguly."

Wishing former India Captain @SGanguly99 a very Happy Birthday! pic.twitter.com/iYSY8o2bmq

— BCCI (@BCCI) July 8, 2018

Notably, Ganguly (183) and Dravid (145) registered a mammoth 318-run partnership for the 2nd wicket against SL in the 1999 World Cup at Taunton. This was the first time that a 300-run partnership was witnessed in ODIs.

Sourav Ganguly:
183 runs
158 balls
17 fours, seven sixes

Rahul Dravid:
 145 runs
 129 balls
 17 fours, one six#OnThisDay in 1999, the India duo added 318 runs for the second wicket in an ICC @cricketworldcup encounter against Sri Lanka  pic.twitter.com/o86DaCOsW7

— ICC (@ICC) May 26, 2020

Ganguly has played 113 Tests and 311 ODIs.

He has 7,212 Test runs to his name with an average of 42.18 that includes 16 tons, where the first one came in his debut match in 1996. Dada's first match had also introduced India's 'The Wall' as Rahul Dravid had also made his debut.

Sourav Ganguly 
Rahul Dravid #OnThisDay in 1996 at Lord's, two of India's best batsmen made their Test debuts 

WATCH them recall the special occasion pic.twitter.com/BENVxPGfGj

— ICC (@ICC) June 20, 2020

Ganguly has 35 half-centuries and 32 wickets in his Test career.

In ODIs, Dada made 11,363 runs at an average of 40.73 along with 22 centuries and 72 fifties. He also has 100 ODI wickets.

Ganguly together with his long-time opening partner Sachin Tendulkar had scored 8,227 ODI runs at an average of 47.55, Notably, no other pair has crossed even 6,000 runs together in ODIs.

Sachin Tendulkar Sourav Ganguly in ODIs:

 Partnerships: 176
 Runs: 8,227
 Average: 47.55

No other pair has crossed even 6,000 runs together in ODIs  pic.twitter.com/VeWojT9wsr

— ICC (@ICC) May 12, 2020

Ganguly was the third-fastest player across the world to reach 10,000 ODI runs. He also holds the record for the highest individual score in CWC for India.