 The return of Sourav Ganguly
14th Dec 2007 23:31 IST
Manish Kumar
In the next series against Sri Lanka, Ganguly’s performance of 168 runs from three Tests earned him the Man of the Series Award – his first in six years.
On January 12, 2007 after his successful Test comeback Ganguly was recalled to the ODI team, 15 months after he was dropped from the ODI side, as India played host to West Indies and Sri Lanka in back to back ODI tournaments.
The former captain staged an excellent comeback by scoring a match-winning 98-run knock in Nagpur on his return in the first ODI. Based on his performances, Ganguly was named to the World Cup Squad. He scored 66 runs against Bangladesh in India's opening game at the 2007 World Cup however India lost this match and were knocked out of the tournament in the group stage.
To date Ganguly is the highest Indian run-getter of 2007 in ODIs even though he has played less matches than others. Currently he is the third highest run-getter of 2007 in ODIs in the world.
On December 12, 2007, Ganguly scored his maiden double century of his career while playing against Pakistan in the first innings of the third and final Test of the series at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore. He was involved in a 300-run partnership for the fifth wicket along with Yuvraj Singh at a time when India was struggling at 61/4. He later went on to score a career best 239.
In the second innings, Ganguly fell nine runs short of becoming the seventh batsman to score a double-century and a hundred in the same match, as he was dismissed for 91.
Ganguly looked set to join the elite club in his 99th Test before being dismissed but by then he had completed 1,000 runs in a calendar year and saved India. |
