'Dadagiri off the field': The fairy tale love story of Sourav Ganguly and Dona Ganguly

One can either love him or hate him but no one can ignore the ‘God of off-side’ Sourav Ganguly. Because he is the man under whose captaincy India started winning overseas matches, he is the man who brought passion and selflessness into Indian cricket.

Ganguly's fans called him, 'Warrior prince of Calcutta' or 'Prince of Bengal' but what they love most about him was his Dadagiri. His attitude and his aggression made him stand out not just in the field but off the field too.

Ganguly is not just a 'passionate cricketer' he is a 'passionate lover' too. Romance does not take the time to blossom between Sourav and Dona. But his lady belongs to what one calls a 'rival family'.

Sourav and Dona were childhood sweetheart, Ganguly once confessed in a talk show, “While playing football, while going somewhere. I could see her, may be way too much.” Although 'the too much' was not enough for Ganguly, so he start to visit his lady love in her school with his friends but for Dona it all started with badminton. Whenever Sourav played badminton his feather often landed in the Dona's home. Dona Ganguly had once said, “Whenever the shuttlecock fell on our compound, I got my chance to return it.” And what about love? “When, I don’t remember. But it happened somewhere in between,”

The man who, was the epitome of aggression used to blush after seeing Dona. It was a mutual affair; an aspiring classical dancer fall in love with a cricketer.

It could have been a love marriage of the century but Dona's father was not a fan of Ganguly's. So they got married secretly and kept the wedding secret for a long time. But eventually when they got to know about the marriage they were fuming, but after sometime they calm down and the duo got married again on 21 February 1997.