Deep Biplab Dasgupta is a former Indian cricketer who played in 8 Tests and 5 ODIs between 2001 and 2006 as the national wicketkeeper and is now a Hindi commentator. He was later replaced by Ajay Ratra. An aggressive opening batsman, Dasgupta played for Bengal, where he took over as captain following the resignation of Sourav Ganguly, and was the reserve wicketkeeper for East Zone behind the national wicketkeeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni. He later joined the renegade Indian Cricket League, where he played for the Royal Bengal Tigers. Nowadays he is a commentator.
Early life
Although born in Kolkata and a Bengali by birth, Dasgupta grew up in Delhi, the capital of India and that is where he got associated with the game for the first time.
Education
Dasgupta studied at the Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, New Delhi and gradually started doing very good as wicket keeper - batsman for his school team. He was in the special care of his school team coach always for his promising performance and hard works. He later shifted to Kolkata and joined the Hindu College to complete his graduation.
Cricket career
Dasgupta started his career as an opening batsman - wicket keeper and showed the class in him in the first match itself, scoring a century on debut in Ranji Trophy against Baroda. His ability behind the stumps and on the crease placed him to become an reliable member in the Bengal Ranji Squad. Dasgupta was included in India's squad to South Africa in 2001. The news that he will make his international debut came to him around an hour before the toss as India's then wicketkeeper-batsman Sameer Dighe suffered a back spasm, and Ganguly told Dasgupta that he was going to make his Test debut at Bloemfontein. That was the same Test in which Virender Sehwag scored century on Test debut. Unfortunately, Deep did not even score a run in that match and was dismissed for a duck. England were touring India for a Test series in 2001 and it was the inaugural Test. The visitors scored 238 in the first innings and India replied with 469 with the help of Dasgupta's solid century. Dasgupta's debut series was an eventful one, in which the famous incident involving Mike Denness took place. Dasgupta was one of the six cricketers along with Sachin Tendulkar, Sehwag, Ganguly, Harbhajan Singh and Shiv Sunder Das to be banned by Denness for one Test. While Tendulkar was banned for ball-tampering, Ganguly was banned for the weird reason of his ‘inability to control the behaviour of his team’. The rest, including Dasgupta, were suspended for excessive appealing. Later he continued with Bengal in Ranji trophy. Deep Dasgupta has been one of the successful captains the Bengal Ranji team has ever had. He is only the second captain after Sambaran Banerjee to lead the team to two Ranji Trophy finals in consecutive seasons. But unfortunately both the times they lost to Uttar Pradesh and Mumbai respectively.
Cricket commentary
Dasgupta is currently a commentator in India and can be seen doing that very often during the Indian Premier League and was also the part of commentary team during the ICC World T20 2016 in India. He brings interesting commentary to the game.
