THE PRINCE....MY DADA AND HIS DADAGIRI......

He was Indian Cricket's biggest revelation...... No...I am not talking about Sachin Tendulkar or MS Dhoni..... He is the Prince of Kolkata.....the King of Behala.....He is my Dada, my idol and inspiration...Sourav Ganguly...

MS Dhoni became only the second Indian Cricketer to be awarded the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna...I feel happy for the guy...but somewhere down the line I am stung by the injustice of it all. How could India's most successful test captain ever, the man who led India to the 2003 World Cup finals and the man who started the trend of bearding the Australians in their own den ....not be given the Khel Ratna??

The only answer which comes to my mind is dirty politics or biased politics.




Dada..after winning the Natwest series final at Lords


I am still branded with the legendary and immortal image of Dada ...twirling his shirt, bare chested after India had won the Natwest Series against England at the Mecca of Cricket - Lords
...He was shouting and screaming and hurling one "fuck off" after another and rightly so...because the English team was fucked off and Andrew Flintoff had disappeared from the scene....



Dada in full flight during his knock of 183

His innings at Taunton where he decimated a full strength Sri Lankan attack with his mammoth 183 still holds a special place in my heart....he helped India reach a huge score of 373 and squashed the mighty Lankans...




Dada acknowledges the crowd at Brisbane



His innings of 143 against Australia in the first test at Brisbane...spurred India on to achieve a miraculous retention of the Border Gavaskar trophy and blew away the myth that the Australians were invincible on home soil.......

Dada during the epic test match


Dada's insistence of including a rookie spinner Harbhajan Singh in the epic Test Match against Australia at Kolkata ,helped India create history..... Agreed that it was the Laxman,Dravid and Harbhajan show...but Dada's captaincy and a brave decision to declare ,completed the superb victory....


His first two hundreds....on debut at Lords and Trent Bridge against England took the world by storm and the haughty prince who refused to carry drinks out onto the pitch ( Because he was the 12th man) became the God of the offside...taking over the reins from David Gower...

He has been Indian Cricket's bad boy as well and has been involved in numerous altercations with the on field umpires and match referees....but then who doesn't love a bad boy :)


Dada after scoring his double hundred


I was infinitely happy when my Dada scored the first double century of his career against Pakistan and the relief on his face was evident.....I am very touchy about my Dada and I cannot take criticism aimed at him....Being a Bengali myself may have something to do with it...but he is my inspiration...


Dada with Greg Chappell

I still remember the period when Dada was ousted from the team following a face off with Greg Chappell which went on to become one of the most scandalous chapters in the history of Indian Cricket.....He showed tremendous resilience, courage and determination and fought his way back into the team...only to find himself being ill treated by his team mates..The glum and morose look on his face killed my heart..... but he roared and silenced his critics once again....He is a lion..my Dada...he never gives up....


And...........he is the only cricketer to have danced with Hrithik Roshan (Dancing God) in a Hero Honda Ad.....He is a dasher....my Dada he really is..............



Dada with SRK at the Knight Rider's promotional event


How can a man who has given so much to Indian Cricket not be awarded with India's highest sporting honour??......Give it a thought....And Dada...please guide the Knight Riders to a sensational IPL Cup victory....it will be another golden feather in your diamond cap.....Three cheers.....

The details below are furnished thanks to Gaurav Tomar....



AWARDS TO SOURAV GANGULY

• Sportstar Person of the Year - 1998 Awarded by the Sportstar Magazine

• Arjuna Award -1998 For outstanding performance in cricket

• CEAT Cricketer of the Year 99-00 , Cash prize of 5 lakh rupees and a trophy

• CEAT Indian Captain of the Year 01-02 For outstanding achievement as leader

• Award for Cricketing Excellence 2003 Presented to men who made "the difference"

• Padma Shri 2004 4th highest civilian award in India

• Rammohan Roy Award 2004 For outstanding performance as captain

SOURAV IN WISDEN

• Sourav has 4 of his innings in top 100 ODI innings declared by Wisden Cricket and 3 in top 25.
  

     21)Ganguly S C 141* Ind vs SA, 2000, Nairobi.

        24)Ganguly S C 141 Ind vs Pak, 2000, Adelaide Oval.

        25)Ganguly S C 183 Ind vs SL, 1999, County Ground.

        71)Ganguly S C 153* Ind vs NZ, 1999, Captain Roop 
Singh Stadium.

• Sourav has 3 of his innings in Top 5 ODI innings played by Indian batsman as declared by Wisden Cricket.

2) Ganguly S.C 141* 196.71 India Vs South Africa
2000, Nairobi Gymkhana Club Ground

4) Ganguly S.C 141 194.35 India Vs Pakistan,
2000, Adelaide Oval 5) Ganguly S.C 183 194.07 India Vs Sri Lanka,
1999, County Ground, Taunton.

SOURAV IN ODIs
·  Second fastest player to reach 10,000 ODI runs.·  Fastest to reach
multiples of 7,000,
8,000,  9,000 ODI Runs.·  Second Fastest after
Viv Richards to reach
6,000 ODI Runs in 147
Innings and Sachin
Tendulkar to 10,000 in
263 Innings.
                       
                  Sourav Ganguly... reaching the 10,000-run mark.

· In the Sahara Cup 1997, Saurav Ganguly set a World Record for 4 consecutive Man of the Match Awards and later he was declared as the Man of The series also.

· Sourav is the highest run scorer
in the world in the
calendar year of1997 - with 1338 runs1999 - with 1767 runs2000 - with 1579 runsin 1998, he was the 2nd highest
total run scorer in the
world after Sachin Tendulakr.
Sachin scored 1894 runs while sourav scored 1328
runs.Which means he ruled the world cricket in batting
for 4 years.He scored 1114 runs in year 2002 also.· Holds the record, shared withMahendra Singh Dhoni,
for the second highest score by an Indian cricketer
in an ODI — 183, against Sri Lanka in 1999.· Held the record, shared with Sachin Tendulkar, for
the highest first wicket partnership for India in a
ODI match, 258, against Kenya in 2001. This record
was bettered by Sri Lankan opening pair of Jayasuriya
and Tharanga in 2006 at Headingly.· Was involved in the first 300 run ODI partnership
with Rahul Dravid.· Sourav with Sachin tops the list of Highest overall
partnership runs by openers with 5799 runs(17
hundred runs partnership which too is a record).· Sourav with Sachin tops the list of Highest overall
partnership runs by a pair playing at any position
with total 7417 runs(22 hundred runs partnership
which too is a record) till date and while his
partnershipship with Rahul Dravid is on the 5^th spot
in this list with a total of 4245 runs.· Sixth on the all time list with 30 man of the match
awards.· First Indian to score an ODI century against
Australia in Australia.(who says he is afraid
of fast tracks ?? :P)· Sourav is among those 9 cricketers of the world who
scored a century and took
4 wickets in the same match.
He first scored 130* and l
ater took 4/21 against SL
in 1999 at Nagpur.· Sourav is among those 12
cricketers of the world
who scored a half century
and took 5 wickets in the
same match. He scored 71*
and took 5/34 against Zim
in 2000 at Kanpur.· Sourav Ganguly in ICC World Cup 2002/03
scored a total of 465 runs and this performance is on
5^th spot in the list of Most runs in an series by a
captain with unfornately Greg Chappell topping the
list :D· In Feb 2005: Climbed to the number 3 spot in the list
of most sixes hit by a batsman in ODI with 168 sixes
in 247 matches.


SOURAV IN WORLD CUP


· Sourav jointly(with Mark Waugh, Sachin Tendulkar and
Ricky Ponting) holds the record of scoring maximum
number of centuries (4) in world cup.· Sourav holds the record of scoring maximum number of
centuries in a single WC (3 centuries in WC-03) jointly
with Mark Waugh and Mathew Hayden.· Sourav holds the record of scoring most runs through
boundaries in an innings in any World Cup match.
He scored 110 runs by boundaries in his mammoth 183
score against SL in taunton in WC-99.· Sourav’s 183 is the second highest score in an inning
by any cricketer with Kirsten topping the list with 188*.· Sourav with Dravid holds the record of heighest
partnership of 318 runs in WC while the 2^nd spont in
the list too goes to Sourav with Sachin who scored 244
runs together against Namibia in WC-03.
SOURAV IN TESTS
· One of 3 batsman who made tons in their 1st two Test innings.· Sourav was only the 3rd batsman
in the world to score a century
on debut at Lords.· His 131 still remains the
highest by any batsman on his
debut at Lord’s.· In May 2004: Joined the top
20 list of players whohit the
most sixes in Test cricket,
with 41 sixes.


SOURAV AS CAPTAIN


· Captained India in a record 49 Test matches.· Led India to a record 21 Test
wins.· India's most successful Test
captain.· India's most successful ODI
captain.· In the 2nd Test vs. Australia
at Kolkata in the
Border-Gavaskar Trophy,
Sourav became only
the 3rd captain in Cricket history to lead a team
to victory after following on. India went on to
win the series 2-1.· In Mar - Apr 2004: Became the first Indian captain
to win an ODI and Test series in Pakistan.· In April 2005: Became only the 3rd cricketer and 2nd
Indian after Mohammed Azharuddin to make 5000 ODI runs
as skipper in the Pepsi Cup vs. Pakistan.