The pair of legendary Indian cricketers in Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar used to be one of the most envious ones in ODI cricket back in the day. The most successful ODI batting pair till date (8,227 runs across 176 innings) and having played 238 ODIs and 103 Tests together for India, Ganguly and Sachin had even come head-to-head with each other once.
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The two had confronted each other when Ganguly was going through one of the toughest times in his career, and was putting in all the efforts to earn a comeback to the national side. Not only was he removed as captain the previous year following an infamous controversy with then head coach Greg Chappell, but his poor form had also cost him a spot across both the formats.
As a result, while Tendulkar represented the India Blue (comprising senior Indian international players), Ganguly was part of the India Green during NKP Salve Challenger Trophy 2006/07.
Sourav Ganguly Bowling To Sachin Tendulkar
It was during the second match of the above mentioned Challenger Trophy in October 2006 at Chennai, when Ganguly was seen bowling to Tendulkar during the 28th over of the India Blue innings.
The ‘Master Blaster’ had already smashed a century by the time and was sharing the crease alongside former India captain Rahul Dravid. Having had his eyes set, Tendulkar decided to thread with caution initially, with Ganguly having arrived to bowl his first over of the innings.
As a result, the first four balls which he faced were dots, followed by a single off the final delivery. Bowling a tight line throughout the over, the right-arm medium pacer did a fine job by giving away mere two runs.
Who Won The Battle Between Ganguly and Tendulkar?
Ganguly returned back for his second over. Perhaps having anticipated the length which Ganguly was about to bowl at him, Tendulkar planted his front foot across and way outside the off-stump the very first ball to guide it towards the gap at the square-leg boundary for four.
Not willing to go for a risky shot yet again, Tendulkar collected just a single off the three other deliveries which he faces in the Ganguly over. All in all, Ganguly bowled three overs to Tendulkar, and fared decently well to give away just 8 runs off 12 deliveries.
While Tendulkar did not give away his wicket in the process, Ganguly indeed emerged victorious in this mini battle being a part-time bowler and given that the former was batting past his century score.
Has NKP Salve Challenger Trophy Been Cancelled?
The 19th edition of the NKP Salve Challenger Trophy took place at Indore in September 2013, and turned out to be the last edition of the tournament.
Reason being that the Deodhar Trophy was set to be introduced as a three-team, 50-over competition from the 2015/16 season onwards. The domestic one-day winning team (winner of the Vijay Hazare Trophy) were supposed to compete for the trophy against two teams chosen by the national selectors.
This very format was already in place during the 18th and 19th seasons of the NKP Salve Challenger trophy. Thus, the BCCI decided to scrap this tournament altogether in July 2015.
