MS Dhoni and Gautam Gambhir
Former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir on Saturday opined that veteran Indian wicketkeeper-batsman MS Dhoni was a "very lucky" skipper having reaped the benefits of his predecessor.
Speaking to Star Sports's Cricket Connected, Gambhir opined that Sourav Ganguly had to work hard to assemble a side to win trophies and Dhoni just made use of it to win the three ICC trophies in his career.
"Dhoni has been a very lucky captain because he got an amazing team in every format. Captaining 2011 World Cup team was very easy for Dhoni because we had players like Sachin (Tendulkar), (Virender) Sehwag, myself, Yuvraj (Singh), Yusuf (Pathan), Virat (Kohli) so he had got the best teams," Gambhir said. "Ganguly had to work very hard for it, and as a result Dhoni won so many trophies."
Besides the three ICC trophies, Dhoni was the first Indian captain to lead the side to the No.1 Test ranking, acheived back in 2009. Gambhir further opined that Dhoni's success in the longer format was owing to player he inherited from Ganguly's side.
"The reason Dhoni became such a successful captain in Test cricket is because of Zaheer Khan. He was a big blessing that Dhoni got, for which credit goes to Ganguly. According to me, Zaheer has been India’s best world class bowler."
