Sourav Ganguly set to be inducted in the ICC Hall of Fame

Sourav Ganguly is set to become the 12th Indian and the 10th Indian men’s cricketer to be inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame, adding another milestone to a career that reshaped Indian cricket both as a player and as a captain.

The formal announcement from the ICC will be made on July 11 after concluding its annual conference.

The former India skipper will join an elite group of cricketers whose contributions have shaped the history of the game.

For a generation that grew up watching him, Ganguly’s legacy was never confined to the elegant cover drives or the off-side strokeplay that earned him the nickname ‘God of the off-side’. It was about something far bigger.

There was a time when Indian cricket travelled overseas hoping not to lose badly. And then, there was Ganguly.

When he took over as India’s captain in 2000, the team was emerging from one of the darkest phases in its history. The match-fixing scandal had shaken public faith, the dressing room needed rebuilding and Indian cricket was desperately searching for a fresh identity.

Ganguly inherited that uncertainty and slowly transformed it into belief.

Backing the next generation

He backed youngsters without worrying too much about the consequences of failure.

Virender Sehwag was encouraged to open the batting. Harbhajan Singh was entrusted with leading the attack against Australia. Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and Mohammad Kaif all found in Ganguly a captain willing to persist through failures because he believed in their ability. Even a young MS Dhoni would later benefit from the culture that Ganguly helped create.

The results followed.

India shared the ICC Champions Trophy in 2002, reached the 2003 ODI World Cup final, squared a Test series in England, won a historic Test series in Pakistan in 2004 and ended Australia’s 16-match winning streak in Kolkata in one of the greatest comebacks in Test history.

“There were different men, different moments, but everyone stood up when it mattered. That’s what builds a great team. We weren’t just trying to win a Test or even a series. We were building character,” Ganguly once told  Sportstar.

His own numbers remain among the finest produced by an Indian batter. In 113 Tests, Ganguly scored 7,212 runs, including 16 centuries. In 311 ODIs, he amassed 11,363 runs with 22 hundreds while also claiming 132 wickets with his useful medium pace. At the time of his retirement, he was among the highest run-scorers in ODI cricket.

Why the Hall of Fame fits?

People remember the shirt waving from the Lord’s balcony after India’s unforgettable NatWest Trophy triumph in 2002. They remember Steve Waugh waiting for him at the toss in Brisbane. They remember a captain who refused to be overawed by reputations and taught an Indian team to believe it belonged anywhere in the world.

That change in mindset would eventually become the foundation on which Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, MS Dhoni and later Virat Kohli built their own successful teams.

Even after retirement, Ganguly remained deeply involved with the game, serving as the president of the Cricket Association of Bengal before taking over as the BCCI president during one of Indian cricket’s most challenging periods, steering the board through the COVID-19 pandemic. He currently heads the CAB.

The ICC Hall of Fame recognises greatness across generations. Ganguly’s induction is a tribute not just to a prolific left-handed batter or one of India’s most successful captains, but to the man who changed the perception about Indian cricket.

Published on Jul 08, 2026