Sourav Ganguly scored a hundred on Test debut at Lord’s, made more than 18,000 international runs as one of the great left-handed openers of the one-day game, and took over a shaken Indian side in 2000 and turned it into a team that expected to win abroad. Later he ran the Board of Control for Cricket in India as its president.
Name: Sourav Chandidas Ganguly | Born: 8 July 1972, Behala, Calcutta (now Kolkata) | Sport: Cricket | Position: Left-handed top-order batter, right-arm medium-pace bowler
A false start and a long wait
Ganguly grew up in a well-off Calcutta family and came through Bengal cricket as a stylish left-hander with a strong off-side game. He was picked for India early, making his one-day debut against West Indies on 11 January 1992 during the tour of Australia, but he played only once on that trip and went back to domestic cricket. It took four more seasons of runs for Bengal before he was given a proper chance.
Lord’s, 1996
That chance came on the 1996 tour of England. On 20 June 1996, in his first Test, he scored 131 at Lord’s, the highest score by any batter on debut at the ground. He followed it with another century in his second Test at Trent Bridge. In the same match at Lord’s another young batter, Rahul Dravid, made 95 on debut. The two would bat together for India for more than a decade.
Opening in one-day cricket
In one-day cricket Ganguly settled at the top of the order alongside Sachin Tendulkar, and the pair became one of the most productive opening partnerships the format has seen. He was strongest through the off side, driving and cutting through cover and point with very little apparent effort, and he was willing to walk down the pitch and hit spinners over long-on.
His highest one-day score came at the 1999 World Cup in Taunton. Against Sri Lanka he made 183, and he and Dravid added 318 for the second wicket, still the highest partnership in World Cup history. He finished his ODI career with 11,363 runs from 311 matches at an average of 41.02, with 22 hundreds and 72 fifties. His medium pace earned him exactly 100 one-day wickets.
Taking charge
Ganguly became captain in 2000, when Indian cricket had been badly damaged by the match-fixing scandal. He chose to build around younger players such as Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh, and he backed them through bad patches. He was a combative leader who did not mind upsetting opponents, and his side began to win more often away from home.
In March 2001 his team came back from following on to beat Steve Waugh’s Australians in Kolkata and went on to win the series. In July 2002, after India chased down 326 against England in the NatWest Series final at Lord’s, Ganguly took off his shirt and waved it from the dressing-room balcony, a picture that came to sum up his captaincy. At the 2003 World Cup in South Africa he scored 465 runs at 58.12 and led India to the final, where they lost to Australia.
In all he captained India in 49 Tests, winning 21, losing 13 and drawing 15. He led them in 146 one-day internationals and won 76.
Dropped, recalled and retired
A loss of form in 2004 and 2005, and a public falling-out with coach Greg Chappell, cost him the captaincy and then his place. He fought his way back into the Test side in late 2006 and batted well over the next two years. He played his last Test against Australia in November 2008 with a Test record of 7,212 runs at 42.17, including 16 centuries.
From the dressing room to the board room
Ganguly played in the first five seasons of the Indian Premier League, captaining Kolkata Knight Riders and then Pune Warriors India, and retired from all cricket in October 2012. He moved into administration and became president of the Cricket Association of Bengal in 2015. On 23 October 2019 he was elected president of the BCCI and served until October 2022. He has also chaired the ICC Men’s Cricket Committee, and in September 2025 he returned as president of the Bengal association.
Career record and honours
- Tests: 113 matches, 7,212 runs, average 42.17, 16 hundreds, 35 fifties, 32 wickets
- One-day internationals: 311 matches, 11,363 runs, average 41.02, 22 hundreds, 72 fifties, 100 wickets
- 131 on Test debut at Lord’s, 1996, the highest debut score at the ground
- 183 against Sri Lanka at the 1999 World Cup and a record 318-run stand with Rahul Dravid
- India Test captain: 49 matches, 21 wins
- World Cup runner-up as captain, 2003
- Arjuna Award: 1997
- Padma Shri: 2004
- BCCI president: 2019 to 2022
