Captain Records

Sourav Ganguly Captaincy Record – The Complete Stats

Sourav Ganguly as an Indian Captain was a game changer for Indian Cricket in the 2000s.

Especially in Overseas tests, Sourav Ganguly has proved himself the best Indian Captain statistically.

Playing outside India, Team India has won out of 11 out of 28 Test matches under Ganguly.

Sourav has the Win percentage of 42.85 in Tests & 53.90 in ODIs.

Let us look into the captaincy records of Sourav Ganguly in detail:

Sourav Ganguly Captaincy Record (All formats)

There has always been a debate on ” Who is the better Indian Captain among MS Dhoni & Sourav Ganguly or in this case, Virat Kohli, the current Captain?”

Click here to compare and analyse other Captains’ records

MS Dhoni – All Formats

Virat Kohli – Test

Virat Kohli – ODI

Virat Kohli – T20I

Sachin Tendulkar – All Formats

Sourav Ganguly – All Formats

Rohit Sharma – All Formats

Shikhar Dhawan – All Formats

Hardik Pandya – All Formats

Kapil Dev – All Formats

KL Rahul – All Formats

Ajinkya Rahane – All Formats

Steve Smith – All Formats

Graeme Smith – All Formats

Ricky Ponting – All Formats

Pat Cummins – All Formats

Joe Root – All Formats


Sourav Ganguly Captaincy Record in Tests

When it comes to Test captaincy, Sourav Ganguly has changed the way the Indian team has played the game.

He was bold, aggressive and had the most-wanted killer attitude, which made the Indian team looked different & stronger, especially when they were travelling.

Indian team under Sourav Ganguly was not afraid of playing in some of the toughest conditions overseas.

They even beat the mighty Australia in Australia to retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in 2003. The 4-match Test Series ended in a draw (1-1).

Sourav Ganguly Test Captaincy Record (Home/Away)

Sourav Ganguly has the best Indian captaincy record in overseas conditions during his time and only bettered by Virat Kohli later.

And look at this comparative analysis on top Indian Test captains.

Indian Test Captaincy Record

PLAYER MATCHES AS CAPTAIN WON LOST DRAWN TIED WIN% OVERSEAS WINS
Virat Kohli 68 40 17 11 0 58.82 16
MS Dhoni 60 27 18 15 0 45 6
Sourav Ganguly 49 21 13 15 0 42.85 11
Mohammad Azharuddin 47 14 14 19 0 29.78 3
Rohit Sharma 24 12 9 3 0 50.00 2
Sunil Gavaskar 47 9 8 30 0 19.14 3
Nawab of Pataudi 40 9 19 12 0 22.5 2
Rahul Dravid 25 8 6 11 0 32 5
Bishan Singh Bedi 22 6 11 12 0 27.27 3
Kapil Dev 34 4 7 22 1 11.76 2

And when it comes to runs scored as captain, Virat leads the chart by a mile.

Most Runs as Indian Captain in Test Cricket

PLAYER MATCHES AS CAPTAIN INNINGS RUNS 100s 50s AVERAGE
Virat Kohli 68 113 5864 20 18 54.4
MS Dhoni 60 96 3454 5 24 40.64
Sunil Gavaskar 47 74 3449 11 14 50.72
Mohammad Azharuddin 47 68 2856 9 9 43.94
Sourav Ganguly 49 75 2561 5 13 37.66
N Pataudi 40 73 2424 5 13 34.14
Sachin Tendulkar 25 43 2054 7 7 51.35
Rahul Dravid 25 45 1736 4 10 44.51
Kapil Dev 34 48 1364 3 8 31.72

Sourav Ganguly ODI Captaincy Record

Finishing the World Cup 2003 as the runners & beating England in the final of the Natwest Trophy in 2002 are the two main highlights of Sourav Ganguly as Captain in ODIs.

The famous Ganguly T-Shirt incident was part of the Natwest Trophy final in Lords.

Here is Sourav Ganguly’s record as Captain in ODIs:

Sourav Ganguly ODI Captaincy Record (Home/Away)

Sourav comes 3rd in the list of most matches & most wins as captain for team India after MS Dhoni (200) & Mohammad Azharuddin (174).

Sourav Ganguly is also one of the 7 captains overall to score 5000+ ODI runs as captain.

Most Runs as Indian Captain in ODI Cricket

PLAYER MATCHES INNINGS NOT OUTS RUNS HIGH SCORE AVEAGE STRIKE RATE 100/50 DUCKS
MS Dhoni 200 172 48 6641 139* 53.55 86.21 6/47 3
Virat Kohli 95 91 16 5449 160* 72.65 98.28 21/27 3
Mohammad Azharuddin 174 162 29 5239 153* 39.39 78.46 4/37 6
Sourav Ganguly 146 142 11 5082 144 38.79 76.32 11/30 9
Rahul Dravid 79 75 12 2658 105 42.19 75.42 2/25 4
Rohit Sharma 56 55 7 2506 208* 52.20 111.97 5/17 3
Sachin Tendulkar 73 70 5 2454 186* 37.75 83.46 6/12 4
Kapil Dev 74 67 16 1564 175* 30.66 105.74 1/7 4
Sunil Gavaskar 37 31 4 702 80 26 61.68 0/5 3
Dilip Vengsarkar 18 17 2 481 88 32.06 67.46 0/4 2

Ganguly’s Achievement as Captain

Even though Sourav’s stats as captain looks marginal when compared to MS Dhoni, we should think of the fact that Sourav Ganguly had managed a young and inexperienced team from the start of his captaincy stint.

Yes, he had Sachin Tendulkar & Rahul Dravid in his sides. Still, the role of captain was a completely different one when he was made the captain.

MS Dhoni – Sachin Tendulkar – Sourav Ganguly

It was a time when Indian people lost trust in the game after the match-fixing scandals. No other players were ready to be the captain then.

He almost got a team with no experience and turned them into match-winners.

India reached the 2003 World Cup finals in which they lost against Australia but brought back the confidence on the Indian fans in the sport.

He introduced Mohammed Kaif, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh & MS Dhoni and then backed them to become the world class players they ended up as.

He once said in an interview, “If I saw a talent, we had to pick him up.”

He even gave up his opener position to Virender Sehwag, which made the later – a player what he turned out into.