Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni
Former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir, on the debate of who has been the better Indian captain between Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni, opined that the latter did not produce any world beaters to Indian cricket as his predecessor had done.
Gambhir felt that apart from Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah, when Dhoni's captaincy tenure ended there weren't enough quality players in the team that could win the team an ICC tournament.
Meanwhile, Gambhir pointed out that Ganguly left behind a bunch of talented cricketers like Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan who played a role in India's 2007 World T20 and 2011 World Cup winning campaign.
"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. There are not too many world-beaters or probably people who win you tournaments," Gambhir was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
"But look at what Sourav Ganguly gave to Indian cricket: Yuvraj Singh, Man of the Series in two World Cups (only at 2011 World Cup). Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Virender Sehwag - these kinds of world-beaters."
Earlier, Gambhir had even opined that Dhoni was a "lucky" skipper as he had quality players for the 2011 victory, which was mosty owing to the hard work put forth by Ganguly in backing young cricketers, including the wicketkeeper-batsman.
"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. Dhoni has been a very lucky captain because he got an amazing team in every format," Gambhir said.
"Captaining 2011 World Cup team was very easy for Dhoni because we had players like Sachin, Sehwag, Myself, Yuvraj, Yusuf, Virat, so he had got the best teams, while Ganguly had to work very hard for it, and as a result Dhoni won so many trophies."
