A typical Cancerian, Sourav was very mischievous as a child.
He is a very quiet, almost aloof person.
He is a natural right hander and does everything, except bat with his right hand.
Sourav learned to play with his left hand from his elder brother, Snehasish, from whom ,he learned to play cricket.
Sourav was first selected in the Bengal Ranji team, at the expense of his brother, Snehashish.
He was born into a family that had everything, with the exception of royalty.
His home in Behala, Kolkata has 48 rooms and his family owns 32 cars (wow, that's a lot)!
He was petrified of dogs as a kid!
Sourav earns around 7 crores a year just from endorsements and charges 1 crore for each advertisement!
He is the second highest earning cricketer in India today, after Sachin Tendulkar.
Sourav and Sachin are one of the most successful opening pairs ever in one-day cricket!
There is an apartment complex in Kolkata, India which is named after Sourav. It is called the ‘Sourav Housing Complex'.
Sourav’s first love was not cricket. In fact, it was football and he admits, that even today, he’d rather watch football than cricket on TV.
Sourav wanted to be a football player, but he took up cricket because his elder brother was a cricketer.
Sourav’s favorite football position is that of a striker. He was in the football team instead of the cricket team till he was 13.
The first thing he does after checking into a hotel room is place a photo of his wife and daughter on the side table.
Sourav maintains a diary in Bengali.
Sourav is a very religious person and prays before every match.
His mother, Nirupa fasts innumerable times in a week for his well-being. She is a very strict displinarian but she always doted on her sons.
Sourav’s first coaching camp was when he was 15 years old, in the summer vacation.
Sourav still lives in a joint family that has over 50 members.
He loves his city, Calcutta especially during the Durga Festival.
A 1.5 km road in Rajarhat in the North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal is named after Sourav. He himself unveiled a plaque containing the new name of the road, Sourav Ganguly
Avenue, at a function organized by the Rajarhat Gopalpur Municipality.
Sourav recently signed a 60 crore deal with Percept de Mark for the next five years.
Sourav calls his brother, “dada bhai” which means elder brother in Bengali.
It upsets Sourav to hear people use the word “arrogant” against him. “I’m not at all arrogant,” he says.
After playing in two or three ODIs, Sourav was dropped from the Indian side, because of his “arrogant attitude".
Sourav doesn’t know what he would be if he wasn’t a cricketer. When asked about it, he just smiled at a loss of an answer.
When Sourav was young, his parents thought to make him an engineer or a doctor!
Sourav was in South Africa when his daughter was born. But thanks to the new technology, the proud father was able to download a picture of his wife and new born by the end of the day.
Sourav eats only vegetarian food on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
Sourav is is very fond of Alu Posto and Chingri Macher Malaikari, both typically Bengali dishes.
Whenever he returns after a tour, he insists on having Alu Posto—a preparation of poppy seeds and potatoes—at his first lunch home. He is also very fond of the prawns in coconut milk preparation. Dona makes it a point to serve him this dish during his stays at home.
Following Tendulkar's footsteps, Sourav opened a three-storey restaurant, Sourav's - The Food Pavilion in Calcutta's posh Park Street. It was inaugurated by Sachin Tendulkar in 2004.
India have never lost a Test match in which Sourav scored a century.
Sourav's daughter's name, Sana means 'praise'.
Sourav is only the third cricketer in the world, along with Arvinda De Silva and Mahela Jayawarderne to score 100 and lead his team to the final of a World Cup.
Sourav loves his city, Kolkata and cannot even think of living anywhere else.
Sourav feels Kolkata's pride is the city's chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
It is Dada's dream to bring Reliance's Anil Ambani and Sahara's Subrato Roy to Kolkata.
Sourav created the record of playing the most number of Tests (99) before getting a 200.
Sourav missed the rare feat of scoring a double hundred and a hundred in the same Test when he was out on 91 in the 2nd innings vs. Pakistan at Bangalore in December 2007. If he had gotten the 100, Dada would've been only the 2nd Indian after Gavaskar and 7th overall to do so.
Dada changes the numbers on his ODI jersey based on his mother's insistence.
Sourav was out for a first ball duck in his final Test innings and joined Don Bradman who had also fallen for a duck, although not a first ball one, in his last innings.
Captain Dhoni allowed Sourav to captain India in the final moments of his international career.
When India took the wicket on Mitchell Johnson to win a historic series, Dada was the acting skipper.
The day Sourav retired was exactly 8 years after he became India's skipper. It was on
November 10, 2000 that Dada was made captain and on November 10, 2008, he retired from international cricket.
Dada has played 311 ODIs and 113 Test in his career. The numbers are reverse of each other.
He is first of the Fab 5 (Dravid, Ganguly, Tendulkar, Laxman, and Kumble) of Indian cricket to announce his retirement.
