Published 15:40 IST, July 13th 2020
Gautam Gambhir picks Sourav Ganguly over MS Dhoni as a better captain for this reason
Former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir picked Sourav Ganguly over Mahendra Singh Dhoni as a better captain and at the same time, also justified the reason
Gautam Gambhir has picked Sourav Ganguly over Mahendra Singh Dhoni as a better captain. Ganguly had taken over the reins when the Indian Cricket was in turmoil at the beginning of the new millennium and MS Dhoni took it to greater heights a few years later as Team India won all the major titles under his captaincy.
Gambhir picks Ganguly over Dhoni
“When MS Dhoni finished, he hasn’t given enough quality players to Virat Kohli, apart from Virat Kohli himself and Rohit Sharma or Jasprit Bumrah now. There are not too many world-beaters or probably people who win you tournaments. But look at what Sourav Ganguly gave to Indian cricket. Yuvraj Singh, the man of the series in two World Cups (Player of the Tournament in 2011 World Cup and was at the peak of his career during the inaugural edition of the ICC World T20 in 2007) Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Virender Sehwag. These kinds of world-beaters,” said Gambhir when he was asked to choose a better skipper between Ganguly and Dhoni while he had participated in a poll conducted by ESPNCricinfo recently.
The successful captaincy careers of Dada & MSD
The southpaw was handed over the captaincy in 2000 when the Indian Cricket was in turmoil after that infamous match-fixing scandal broke out that included star cricketers Ajay Jadeja and former skipper Mohammad Azharuddin. Under Dada's captaincy, India had reached the finals of ICC Knockout Trophy 2000, won the Natwest tri-series in England by beating the hosts in the final that was led by Nasser Hussain, joint-winners of ICC Champions Trophy 2002 along with Sri Lanka, runners-up in the 2003 World Cup, drawing the Test series in Australia in 2003/04 and registering a historic ODI as well as Test series win against arch-rivals Pakistan in Pakistan, etc.
Sourav's captaincy ended in 2005 after his fallout with former Australian cricketer/captain-turned coach Greg Chappell.
Mahi on the other hand is arguably the best captain in the history of both Indian and world cricket. He is the only captain to win all the ICC events (World T20 2007, ICC Test mace in 2009, 2011 World Cup, and 2013 Champions Trophy). He has also led the Men In Blue to two Asia Cup triumphs in 2010 and 2016 (T20I format) respectively.
MS had relinquished his Test captaincy in December 2014 after the end of the Boxing Day Test match against Australia at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground. He had called it a day on his limited-overs captaincy in January 2017 and passed on the torch to his then-deputy and good friend Virat Kohli.
Updated 15:40 IST, July 13th 2020