Ganguly playing in his 300th ODI was named Man of the Match for the 31st time in his ODI career. After finding himself in the outer after the Zimbabwe tour in 2005, he has had one of the best seasons of his career so far, scoring 956 runs in 20 innings. Sure, he has not had a century in a while, but he has more than compensated for it with consistency. Since his comeback he has averaged 53+ and has scored 10 half centuries to boot – in fact he has been the most successful player for India this year. Have a look at these stats:
| Mat | Inn | Total | Avg | 100s | 50s | |
| Ganguly | 21 | 20 | 956 | 53.11 | 0 | 10 |
| Tendulkar | 19 | 18 | 764 | 47.75 | 1 | 8 |
| Dravid | 23 | 20 | 768 | 51.20 | 0 | 8 |
| Yuvraj | 22 | 20 | 777 | 48.56 | 0 | 5 |
| Dhoni | 23 | 20 | 657 | 46.92 | 1 | 3 |
| Gambhir | 11 | 11 | 417 | 46.33 | 1 | 4 |
| Uthappa | 9 | 8 | 242 | 30.25 | 0 | 3 |
| Karthik | 19 | 15 | 287 | 28.70 | 0 | 2 |
He has also been involved in 9 century partnerships in those 20 innings this year: 4 with Sachin Tendulkar, 2 with Gambhir, 1 each with Dravid, Yuvraj and Sehwag.
Of course, his ground fielding is still a handicap and he his strike rate is not what it used to be, but there is no denying his resurgence. He needs just one more wicket to complete the triple of 10,000 runs, 100 wickets and 100 catches, which would be a remarkable achievement.
(Must read: Ganguly’s CricInfo interview)
-Mahesh-
