Sourav Ganguly gets his biopic, joining Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni in cinema

Sourav Ganguly, the former India captain whose swashbuckling leadership transformed Indian cricket at the turn of the millennium, is set to be immortalised on the big screen as a biopic on his life moves into production.

The announcement places Ganguly in rarefied company: Sachin Tendulkar's life was documented in the acclaimed 'Sachin: A Billion Dreams', while MS Dhoni was portrayed by the late Sushant Singh Rajput in 'MS Dhoni: The Untold Story', one of Bollywood's most commercially successful sports films. Ganguly's story — his early career, his iconic shirt-waving moment at Lord's, his painful axing and dramatic comeback, and his later role as BCCI president — offers a script as dramatic as any written for the screen.

For Bengalis and cricket fans across India, Ganguly occupies a near-mythical status. The 'Prince of Calcutta' is credited with building a team that feared no one, instilling a self-belief in Indian cricket that had previously been absent on away tours. A film capturing that era is likely to generate enormous emotional resonance.

The biopic trend in Indian sports cinema has proven commercially potent, with films on wrestlers, runners, and boxers also finding large audiences. Ganguly's film will have the advantage of a protagonist whose career arc — triumph, exile, and return — is tailor-made for cinematic storytelling.