My Favorite!!!!!

Guess who?

Lofted drives, silky cover drives, lightening square cuts – define his play!

Waived his shirt on the Lords after an emphatic Indian win!

Started his career with a test hundred and ended it with a duck!

Sourav Ganguly has been my hero (in purely cricketing sense!) for the past 10 years. I have grown up watching him play, I have matured seeing him scathing the best of the bowlers in all the parks of the world, I have watched him transforming Indian Cricket. I have fought umpteen times for him to decide the best player in the team, the best player in the world!

The reason for such an admiration is not that we share a similar name (as far as I know, Saurabh is spelled as Sourav in West Bengal). The reasons are not just related to cricket. They go far beyond that.

Here is a man, who has single handedly fought for himself, times and again and has come back stronger and mightier. He has everything one looks out for in an ideal – a thorough gentleman to the core, confidence is his forte, fearlessness is his passion, determination is his ammunition and leadership is his skill. He has been responsible for changing the Indian team from timid cattle to fearless tigers. Talent was always abound in Indian cricket, but there was a need for that spark, that backing, that vision, that leader.

There have been lots written about him. There have been statistics thrown. I need not mention all those clichéd statistics which make him a great player. But there is one particular statistic that I just derived after mixing and matching his other records, and never found it being mentioned. He averages about one Man of the Match award per 10 matches! And he has played over 300 ODIs. I personally feel this is huge, as there would have been many times he has played second best in a match. And remember all this when he has played most of his matches alongwith other greats like Sachin, Kumble and Dravid, and later with Sehwag, Harbhajan and Yuvraj!

Had it not been for the recent consecutive three wins over England, I would have lost my attraction towards cricket. It is saddening not to see him go out again to drive the bowlers crazy, to bludgeon his way to another century, to make us proud. After all, Saurabh – naam main hi dam hain! :D