Sourav Chandidas Ganguly popularly known as Dada, deemed as one of the best captains of team India and currently the 39th President of BCCI. Dada has also dipped his hands in the field of commentary due to his vast knowledge and love for the game as well as command over his great talking skills.
During his illustrious career he has been one of the most successful batsmen and the most successful captain India has ever witnessed.
Born on 8th of July 1972 in Kolkata to his parents Chandidas and Nirupa Ganguly, Dada was fortunate enough that he was born to one of the richest people in Kolkata and his dad ran an extremely successful printing business thus he never had to face any major issues in life growing up.
Sourav Ganguly was a fan of football and initially started his journey in sports by playing football, football is extremely popular in Kolkata and every kid on the block loves this game, Indian football has seen a lot of greats being produced from this city and therefore no one can avoid this sport in his/her childhood. He later got attracted to cricket and wanted to play it professionally but his mother never supported his decision of making a career in sports.
Snehasish Ganguly, the elder brother of Sourav Ganguly who was already an established cricketer by the time Sourav started taking interest in cricket is one of the major reasons why Sourav started taking cricket lessons, he convinced his father to get Sourav Ganguly enrolled in a cricket coaching camp during his summer holidays. After taking admission in this academy his batting talent started getting discovered.
He started learning cricket with his brother who was already established and a seasoned player with enough experience to guide Dada, despite being right handed naturally he decided to bat left handed so that he could share the cricket equipment with his brother.
His first big achievement came when he scored a century in the U-15 tournament against Orissa and eventually started his captaincy journey by becoming the captain of St. Xavier’s School.
In the year 1989 Sourav Ganguly was selected to play for the Bengal Team and unfortunately the same year his brother was dropped from the side, after a fantastic performance in the following season of the Ranji Trophy, Sourav rose to fame and his performance started coming into the limelight.
Dada’s life has not been any less than a typical Bollywood movie as in the year 1997 he decided to elope with his childhood friend Dona Roy, they got married in the year 1997 and this provided a big boost for career and performance as he scored a ton against Sri Lanka and also won back to back Man of the Match awards. His streak never stopped after this and eventually he went on to become the captain of team India.
Sourav has proven to be most successful captain of the Indian team in test cricket, he has captained the Indian team in 49 test matches and has won 21, lost 13 and drew 15 which takes his win percentage upto 42.85. Such a feat has never been witnessed and it will be tough to replicate such consistency for the national team.
He is currently the 9th highest run scorer in ODI history with 11363 runs and is known as one of the top players and captains that cricket has ever scene, his career has been quite adventurous with a lot of ups and downs and controversies as well but this has not distracted him from his goals.
