Happy Birthday Dada; When Ganguly Shook The 'Gentleman's Game' With Shirtless Celebration
Sourav Ganguly Celebration - (X.com)
On Monday, July 8, former India captain Sourav Ganguly is celebrating his 52nd birthday. Dada will go down in history as one of the key figures in Indian cricket.
The 'Prince Of Calcutta' is known to bring in and give opportunities to several players like MS Dhoni, Virendra Sehwag, Ashish Nehra, Zaheer Khan and others, who emerged as the pillars of Indian cricket.
On the occasion of Dada's 52nd birthday, let's revisit the 2002 Natwest Series final, where Ganguly shook the world by celebrating India's historic win with a shirtless celebration at Lord's balcony.
In the final, England, batting first, put 325/5 on the board. In reply, India started positively but lost five quick wickets, putting England in the driver's seat. However, Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif's magical innings saw India register a historic win.
As soon as India hit the winning runs, the camera panned to Dada, who was in the Lord's balcony and celebrated the win by taking off his shirt and swirling it in the air animatedly.
The reason behind Dada's aggression was that when England came to India before the Natwest series, Andrew Flintoff celebrated similarly after his last over heroics in the 6th and final ODI helped England level the series.
Thus, Ganguly made Flintoff taste his own medicine by replicating the celebrations at Lord's balcony.