Sourav Ganguly

1) Sourav Ganguly replaced his elder brother Snehashish in the Bengal Ranji Trophy team. How ironical indeed!
2) Sourav Ganguly was a huge football fan in his childhood(he still is!), and football was actually his first love! But due to Snehashish's insistence, Sourav was enrolled into a cricket academy during his class 10 holidays. And thus one of India's greatest cricketers began their journey
3) Sourav's parents gave him the nickname ' Maharaj' meaning 'prince'. Perhaps they knew their son was born to lead. Later, Goeffrey Boycott fondly gave Sourav the nickname 'The Prince of Calcutta'
4) Sourav Ganguly made his debut against West Indies at Brisbane in 1992, but was consequently dropped from the side because of his rumored ' attitude' problems. It is said that Sourav refused to carry drinks onto the field for a senior cricketer, which he has continuously denied till date
5) Sourav Ganguly got an opportunity in the second test at Lords against England in 1996 after Navjot Singh Sidhu departeded from the touring party, citing ill-treatment by the then captain Mohammed Azharuddin
6) When Sourav Ganguly took over captaincy in 2000 india's test ranking was 8th and when he left captaincy india's test ranking was 2nd, best improvement by far by any team.
7) Out of his 22 tons in odi he has scored 18 outside of india.
8) Among many other cricketers, Saurav Ganguly scored a century in his first Test, in the Mecca of Cricket, the Lord's
9) Saurav Ganguly is the only player to win four consecutive Man of the Matchawards in ODIs
10) Sourav Ganguly had his personal bowling machine installed in his house after he was dropped from the Indian team in 1992
11) Sourav's ton at Lord's Cricket ground was the highest score by a batsman on debut at the ground. 
12) Sourav Ganguly's decision to play Rahul Dravid as a wicketkeeper-batsman in ODIs was initially criticized by many. However, that masterstroke was instrumental in India’s ODI success thereon as it allowed the team to play an extra specialist batsman and also got Dravid a permanent place in the ODI team.
13) Sourav Ganguly insisted Virender Sehwag open in Test cricket. Sehwag responded by becoming the most explosive opening batsman in Tests with an enviable record in the five-day game.
14) Javagal Srinath came back from retirement thrice on Ganguly's insistence and each time he performed brilliantly except for the WC2003 final
15) Sourav Ganguly hosts a hugely popular game show 'Dadagiri' on a popular Bengali TV Channel. Shah Rukh Khan, Gautam Gambhir, Irfan Pathan, S.Sreesanth etc have shown up as celebrity guests on his show, despite none of them knowing any Bengali.
16) Sourav Ganguly is the seventh Indian cricketer to have played 100 Test matches
17) Sourav Ganguly is a world record holder for creating most number of 50-run partnerships for the first wicket (44 fifties)
18) Sourav's first love was not cricket. In fact, it was football
19) he is very religious person and prays before every match.
20) His home in Behala, Kolkata has 48 rooms and his family owns 32 cars