India were joint winners in 2002 ICC Champions Trophy with Sri Lanka under Sourav Ganguly's captaincy.
Former India opener Virender Sehwag has picked Sourav Ganguly as the better captain in comparison to MS Dhoni. Sehwag said Ganguly built the team from scratch and taught India to win matches overseas.
Ganguly has led India to the 2003 ICC World Cup final and they were also the joint winners of the 2002 ICC Champions Trophy with Sri Lanka. But India has won three major ICC titles under the captaincy of Dhoni, which includes the 2007 T20 World Cup, 2011 World Cup, and 2013 ICC Champions Trophy.
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“I feel captaincy-wise, both of them were great. But I feel the best amongst the two was Ganguly because he built the team from the onset, took in new players, and rebuilt a unit. He taught India to win matches abroad, we drew Test matches, won some abroad under him,” the former India cricketer said on RJ Raunak’s YouTube show “13 Jawab Nahi”.
“Dhoni was lucky in the sense that he got the same team to lead that Ganguly had nurtured, so they both were great but better was Sourav Ganguly,” he added.
Sehwag also recalled the incident when he refused to take a single despite being on 199 against Sri Lanka. He wanted to save his batting partner, Ishant Sharma from the legendary spinner Muttiah Muralitharan.
“This is a very old tale. We were on Sri Lanka’s tour in 2008. I remember Muttiah Muralitharan was bowling and I had Ishant Sharma at the non-striker’s end. I knew that if I take a single, Muralitharan would dismiss Ishant, so I decided to farm the strike and save Ishant. But Muralitharan placed all the fielders close by, and luckily the ball went in the gap and we took a single on the last ball. Ishant did not survive too long after that and was dismissed in the very next over," he said.
The 42-year-old named Mohali, Chandigarh as his favorite ground. “I have always loved Mohali. I always enjoyed playing there. Whenever I used to step out at that venue, I felt I will score runs for sure. Also, there are huge sofas there, so even if you get dismissed, just go back and relax on those sofas. Outside India, I like Melbourne. The food there is great, and even at that venue I felt like I would be able to score many runs,” he revealed.