5 things that might not have happened in Indian cricket were it not for Sourav Ganguly

#2 Virender Sehwag might not have become one of the greatest openers of all time

Sehwag and Sourav Ganguly

Virender Sehwag is one of the most destructive openers in cricket history, alongside Sourav Ganguly. The Nawab of Najafgarh is the only opener to have scored over 7,500 runs in both Tests and ODIs, and has also scored the most runs in international cricket as an opener.

However, we might not have seen Viru at the top of the order had Sourav Ganguly not asked the then-middle-order batsman to shift. The backing that Sehwag received from his captain proved to be crucial, and he said in 2019 -

"Dada had a big role to play in my shift to the top of the order. He explained to me that the opening slot was vacant, so if I take it, my place in the side will be guaranteed. But in case I was against the idea and wanted to stick to the middle order, he explained, I would have to wait for someone to get injured."

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#1 MS Dhoni might not have become the Indian captain were it not for Sourav Ganguly

Sourav Ganguly backed MS Dhoni to the hilt

In 2005, captain Sourav Ganguly promoted MS Dhoni to No. 3 in ODIs, and the wicket-keeper responded with a swashbuckling 148 against Pakistan and Vizag. Dada recently spoke about how this decision came into being, and we could go as far as to claim that were it not for Sourav Ganguly, MS Dhoni may have never become the Indian captain.

Indian cricket had a whole host of exciting youngsters like Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif, and the wicket-keeper's slot was stacked with the likes of Dinesh Karthik and Parthiv Patel. But MS Dhoni's destructiveness with the bat titled the scales heavily in his favour - a trait that only revealed itself to the public due to Sourav Ganguly's backing.

As they say, the rest is history.

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