Playing Style and Influences
Ganguly commented that David Gower was the first cricketer to attract him to the game. He loved Gower's style and used to watch old videos of him playing. Other cricketers who had an influence on him are: David Boon, Mohinder Amarnath, Kapil Dev and Allan Border. Ganguly is a left-handed batsman whose runs came primarily from the off-side. Debashish Dutta, author of Sourav Ganguly, the maharaja of cricket, commented that throughout his career, "Ganguly played off-side shots such as the square cut, square drive and cover drive with complete command." Rahul Dravid has called Ganguly "...next to God on the off-side." He used to hit powerful shots to the off-side on front and back foot with equal ease. However, early in his career he was not comfortable with the hook and pull, often giving his wicket away with mistiming such shots. He was also criticized for having difficulty in handling short bouncers, notoriously exploited by the Australians and South Africans. However, after his comeback in 2007, he worked upon these weaknesses to a large extent.
Amrita Daityari, author of Sourav Ganguly: the fire within, noted that in ODIs, where Ganguly usually opened the innings, he used to try to take the advantage of fielding restrictions by advancing down the pitch and hitting pace bowlers over extra cover and mid-off. She commented: "Ganguly was notorious for attacking left-arm spin bowlers. Due to excellent eye–hand coordination, he was noted for picking the length of the ball early, coming down the pitch and hitting the ball aerially over mid-on or midwicket, often for a six. However, he did have a weakness in running between the wickets and judging quick singles." There were many instances where Ganguly's batting partner was run out due to Ganguly's calling for a run, and then sending him back while halfway down the pitch. A situation like this happened in an ODI against Australia where he took a single when on 99, but he coasted and did not ground his bat. Although the bat was past the crease, it was in the air and he was consequently run out. Ganguly said, "I love to watch myself hit a cover drive, to watch myself hit a hundred." Ganguly's relationship with former Indian coach John Wright has been well documented in contemporary media, with them denoting the relationship as a "symbiotic process". They credited Wright and Ganguly with bringing out international class performers, through academic, coaching and scientific fitness regimens. According to Dubey, Ganguly and Wright, along with other members of the team like Tendulkar and Dravid, were the first to understand the importance of a foreign coach for the Indian cricket team and was convinced that the domestic coach has outlived its utility. Ganguly's aggressive style and Wright's importance on fitness ushered in the development of a better cricket team for India.
Ganguly is a right-arm medium pace bowler. He can swing and seam the ball both ways and often chips in with useful wickets to break partnerships. Vinod Tiwari, author of the biography Sourav Ganguly praised him saying "espite not being very athletic as a fielder, Ganguly has taken 100 catches in one-day Internationals. That's something to be proud of!" However he criticized Ganguly's ground fielding, especially his slowness in intercepting the ball to prevent runs and his tendency to get injured during catching the ball.
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