Just Virender Sehwag Things: Sourav Ganguly Celebrated Shirtless To Get "Undergarments Endorsement Deal"

On July 13, 2002, India's then-captain Sourav Ganguly celebrated shirtless from the balcony of Lord's dressing room after the "Men in Blue" came back from the brink of loss to beat England and win the NatWest Trophy. This is one of the most iconic images of Indian cricket.

Ganguly was angry about how England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff took off his shirt during a match at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai during an earlier tour and was ready to return the compliment.

But India was down to 146/5 at one point while trying to reach a huge 325-run goal. Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif's 121-run partnership at the sixth wicket brought India back into the game. Kaif then got important help from Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan, which made it possible for India to win by two wickets and give Ganguly his chance.

In that match, Virender Sehwag took part. He had a very funny reason for what happened. Sehwag made a joke at the launch of the book "Pitchside: My Life in Indian Cricket" by former BCCI General Manager Amrit Mathur. He said, "Dada celebrated without his shirt because he wanted an endorsement deal from a knickers brand."

"He wanted to give Flintoff a good answer for what he did in Mumbai," Sehwag said.

He also told about another time when Ganguly was involved. "When the 2003 World Cup got off to a bad start, our boss John Wright asked who should play first. We all got together and wrote down what we thought would work. Only one of the 11 chits had 'Saurav-Sachin' written on it. On his chit, only Saurav Ganguly wrote only his name.

Everybody else wrote their names and mine and Sachin's. Since then, Sachin and I have been starting, and Dada came in at number three, which was very kind of him," he said.