Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni are widely regarded as two of the greatest captains in Indian cricket history. Naturally, their captaincy style is often compared and it’s hard to ascertain which one has been the better.
When it comes to winning trophies, Dhoni seems to be the clear winner with him being the only captain to have won all major global ICC trophies including T20 World Cup, ODI World Cup and Champions Trophy.
However, Ganguly took control of Indian cricket at a time when it was recovering from the shocks of a match-fixing scandal. He not only successfully pulled them out of that miserable phase but also is credited with instilling confidence of winning in overseas conditions. Under him, India became a fortress at home beating the likes of all-conquering Australia and making the final of the 2003 ODI World Cup.
More importantly, Ganguly promoted young talents including the likes of Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Virender Sehwag among others.
Gambhir reckons that while Dhoni may be statistically speaking the greatest India captain ever, where he lags in providing quality players something where Ganguly is miles ahead.
“When MS Dhoni finished [his captaincy stint], he hasn’t given enough quality players to Virat Kohli, apart from Virat Kohli himself and Rohit Sharma, or Jasprit Bumrah now,” Gambhir was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
WATCH Gautam Gambhir’s Statement on Dhoni:
He continued, “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, Man of the Series in two World Cups (Yuvraj was the man of the series at 2011 ODI World Cup) Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Virender Sehwag – these kinds of world-beaters.”
Gambhir further added that though Dhoni may have got it a little easier than Ganguly in terms of building a world-beating team, he was indeed very serious about taking Indian cricket forward.
“Both these guys have taken Indian cricket forward. Yes, MS Dhoni got it a little easier than Sourav Ganguly, but purely from the impact point of view, I can only talk about MS Dhoni because he was very, very serious about taking Indian cricket forward,” he said.
People always used to think that he was not too serious about Test cricket, but he was equally serious about Test cricket as well. That was one of the reasons why we reached No.1 as well,” the former India opener added.
