July 8, 2025 - Today is the birthday of former Indian team captain Sourav Ganguly. He is now 53 years old. It has been a long time since he stopped playing cricket, but Ganguly, known as the “Prince of Kolkata” and “Royal Bengal Tiger”, is still loved for his batting and captaincy.

Ganguly played great shots on the offside, and fans started calling him the “God of the Off Side”. He also made a young Indian team that learned how to win in other countries. After cricket, Ganguly became the BCCI president, where he made many big and important decisions.

 Today, on his birthday, let us touch on the five famous decisions of Dada that people still remember.

1. Sending Dhoni at No. 3

In 2005, during an ODI match against Pakistan in Visakhapatnam, Ganguly made a bold move. He sent young MS Dhoni to bat at number 3. Usually, this position was taken by Rahul Dravid or Yuvraj Singh.

At that time, Dhoni was new and had not done anything special in earlier matches. But this time, Dhoni played a powerful innings of 148 runs in 123 balls. This match changed his career forever. Ganguly’s risky decision proved to be the right one.

2. Kohli Removed from Captaincy?

During 2021-22, when Ganguly was head of BCCI, a big controversy came up. Virat Kohli first left the T20 captaincy, then he was removed from ODI captaincy and later, he left the Test captaincy, too.

Kohli had said he only wanted to step down from T20 captaincy and continue leading in ODIs and Tests. But BCCI made Rohit Sharma the ODI captain. Kohli later said that no one from BCCI told him not to leave the T20 captaincy. This created a lot of headlines, and Ganguly’s name was linked to this situation.

3. Dravid Made Head Coach

After the 2021 T20 World Cup, the coaching term of Ravi Shastri ended. Ganguly, as BCCI president, wanted a coach who understood Indian cricket deeply. He chose Rahul Dravid, who had played many matches with him. When Ganguly was the Indian team captain, Dravid was the vice-captain — together they had led India to many victories. This decision gave Indian cricket a new direction.

4. Day-Night Test Match in India

As soon as Ganguly became BCCI president in 2019, he announced that India would play its first day-night Test match soon.

This happened in November 2019 at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, in a Test match against Bangladesh. It was India’s first pink-ball Test match. The stadium was decorated with pink lights, and guests like Sachin Tendulkar and Mamata Banerjee attended the match. It was a grand event and a new chapter in Indian Test cricket.

5. Salary Increase for Domestic Players

Ganguly had said that helping domestic players financially was his biggest goal. He kept his promise.

After a meeting of the BCCI Apex Council, match fees for domestic players were increased. Senior men: Rs 40,000 to Rs 60,000 per day; senior women: Rs 20,000 per day

Also, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, only a few tournaments were held in 2019-20. So, BCCI decided to give 50% match fee as compensation to those domestic players. This step helped many cricketers in tough times.