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Dada set to play his 300th ODI

Sourav Ganguly is all set to play his 300th One Day International on Sunday at Headingley. The former Indian Skipper would become the ninth player in the history of the game on Sunday to have played 300 ODIs if at all he does play the fifth One Dayer at Leeds. The question of ‘if’ arises as Dada had missed the nets session yesterday and had stayed back in the hotel because of not being well. India are already without Zaheer Khan most certainly for the fifth One Dayer that is going to be a do-or-die match for them.

Ganguly would be the fourth Indian to play 300 ODIs following Sachin Tendulkar (392), Mohammad Azharuddin (334) and Rahul Dravid (324). Interestingly there was a time when Rahul Dravid was kept out of the team saying that his game wasn’t suitable for the One Dayers. Ganguly could have easily got to 300 ODIs well before Dravid but in 2005, the Southpaw was continuously kept away from the team because of Greg Chappell’s influence as being the Coach of the Indian team. Ganguly did force his way back into the side and has consistently scored runs but the criticism of late has been his sedate scoring rate and the lack of rotating the strike to keep the scoring busy.

In the ongoing NatWest Series, Sourav Ganguly has been dismissed cheaply two times and the other two times got himself to a start. In the 3rd ODI at Edgbaston, Ganguly top scored with 72 but the problem for India was that it took him 103 balls at a time when Indian was chasing more than six runs per over in their chase of 282. The 35-year-old had also passed the milestone of passing 11,000 runs in his ODI career during this ongoing series. Ganguly still has another 3 more matches to go to actually play his 300th ODI for India as he had recently also turned out for AsiaXI. Ganguly’s first ODI dates back to 1992 when he had played just the one game against West Indies in the Benson and Hedges World Series. After almost being a forgotten name in Indian Cricket, Ganguly came back strongly in 1996 on the tour of England and since then never ever looked back. The only time one thought that his career was over was in 2005 during Chappell’s tenure but Dada kept faith in his abilities to return back to put away any rumours suggesting about his retirement.