Sri Lankan cricket legend and current MCC President Kumar Sangakkara recently expressed his views on the ongoing debate around the greatest captain for Team India between Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni.
Both Dhoni and Ganguly took Indian cricket to greater heights with their respective captaincy style, but when it comes to the transformational effects of captaincy on the team, team building, and overall impact, the current BCCI President is far ahead of the legendary wicketkeeper-batsman.
Despite taking over the captaincy during the toughest time of Indian cricket post the match-fixing scandal in the early 2000s, Ganguly changed the entire picture of the team and gave the team legends like Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Zaheer Khan and Dhoni too.
However, Ganguly, one of the most successful captains, hasn’t won an ICC title for India but gave an incredible team to Dhoni to make the history, captaining the Men in Blue to win all ICC title for the country.
Hailing Ganguly’s impact as captain, Sangakkara said former India captain gave a lot to the Indian cricket team and made the biggest difference to Indian cricket especially in terms of winning games away.
Sangakkara said on Star Sports show Cricket Connected, “Giving that Indian team a lot of steel, self-belief, character. Forget about winning at home. I think all sides are comfortable winning at home. But it’s about going outside in test conditions that you are not familiar with against the best in the world and having that fire, hunger, and belief to win. And I think that’s where Dada made the biggest difference to Indian cricket.”
Pointing out Ganguly gave India plenty of match-winners, the legendary batsman said the Indian great left behind a legacy, and Dhoni was benefited from it. He added, “You can be judged on a lot of things but sometimes you have to leave something behind and I think in that sense, Dada did a lot to create a wonderful legacy for others to inherit and MS benefited from that.”
former Sri Lankan captain further said, “MS, exceptional player, unbelievable captain, again, has moved Indian cricket forward. But the foundation for all of that was laid by Dada for me.”
However, he picked Dhoni as best in terms of batting abilities, but in Test cricket, he went for Ganguly.
Sangakkara signed off by saying, “In one-day cricket, the ability to finish, is always to me, very, very tough. So, I would go with MS for sure in limited-overs cricket, in white-ball cricket just because he batted at that tougher finisher position, but in Test cricket, without a doubt, Ganguly every day.”
(With Cricketnext Inputs)
