'He built a team from scratch': Parthiv on why Ganguly has an edge over Dhoni in captaincy

Parthiv Patel has picked Sourav Ganguly over Mahendra Singh Dhoni as a better captain to have led Team India at the highest level. 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. 

Parthiv picks Ganguly over Dhoni

“The competition is valid between the two captains. One captain has a lot of trophies while the other captain has built the team. When Sourav Ganguly became the captain after 2000, Indian cricket was going through a difficult time,” said Parthiv while interacting on the Star Sports show 'Cricket Connected'.

“From there he built a team that won abroad, not that we are not winning earlier, but we won big Test matches abroad like Headingly, in Australia and then went to Pakistan and won the Test series. If you talk about the 2003 World Cup in South Africa, no one was thinking that the Indian team will reach the final,” the veteran stumper added.

“If you talk about Dhoni, he has a lot of trophies. He is the only captain who has won so many trophies. In my opinion, if I have to cast my vote it would be for Dada because he built a team from scratch,” the Gujarat cricketer further added.

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. 

READ: Gautam Gambhir Picks Sourav Ganguly Over MS Dhoni As A Better Captain For This Reason