Sourav Ganguly reveals how he had to elevate himself to bat by heeding Sachin's advice

In a mega exclusive interview on Republic Bangla, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) President Sourav Ganguly in interaction with Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami talked about how he had to elevate himself to bat by listening to Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar's advice. In his illustrious cricketing career, 'Dada' has batted at different positions for Team India- as an opener, at number three, as well as in the middle-order.

When Sachin advised Sourav to open the innings

"Before I started to open the innings in One Day Internationals, I used to bat in the middle-order. One fine day, Sachin comes and asks me to bat at number three in Tests. He said that we did not have an opener so I need to open the innings", said Ganguly.

"Where life takes you who knows?", he said.

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Sourav Ganguly's illustrious cricketing & captaincy career

In his illustrious career, the southpaw went on to represent India in 113 Tests and 311 ODIs where he amassed 7,212 and 11,363 runs respectively. Even though he had made his international debut in 1992, it took him four years to establish himself as a player at the highest level after he scored an outstanding century on Test debut against England at the 'Mecca of Cricket' Lord's in June 1996.

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Ganguly was handed over the captaincy in 2000 when the Indian Cricket was in turmoil after that infamous match-fixing scandal broke out that included star cricketers Ajay Jadeja and former skipper Mohammad Azharuddin. Under Dada's captaincy, India had reached the finals of ICC Knockout Trophy 2000, won the Natwest tri-series in England by beating the hosts in the final that was led by Nasser Hussain, joint-winners of ICC Champions Trophy 2002 along with Sri Lanka, runners-up in the 2003 World Cup, drawing the Test series in Australia in 2003/04 and registering a historic ODI as well as Test series win against arch-rivals Pakistan in Pakistan, etc.

Sourav's captaincy reign ended abruptly in 2005 after his fallout with former Australian cricketer/captain-turned coach Greg Chappell. 

'Dada' played the last match of his international career during the fourth and final Test match between India and Australia at Nagpur's VCA Stadium in November 2008. He signed off on a high as India won the series 2-0 to regain the iconic Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

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