Former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir recently named the better limited-overs captain between the former Indian captains Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni, who were very successful during their captaincy tenures.
Gautam Gambhir was one of the very successful cricketers in Indian cricket history. While he served for the Indian team between 2003 and 2016, Gambhir played 58 Tests, 147 ODIs and 37 T20Is, where the left-handed top-order batsman scored 4154 runs (average 41.95), 5238 runs (average 39.68) and 932 runs (average 27.41) respectively. During his international career, Gambhir played under six different captains.
In April 2003, Gambhir made his international debut under Sourav Ganguly’s captaincy. During Ganguly’s captaincy tenure, Gambhir played 13 international matches.
Meanwhile, during another former Indian captain MS Dhoni’s leadership, the left-handed top-order batsman played 176 international matches. During Dhoni’s captaincy tenure, Gambhir was a crucial member of India’s many successes, including winning the ICC World T20 2007 and ICC Cricket World Cup 2011.
The 38-year-old Gambhir recently claimed that Dhoni was an undoubtedly better limited-overs captain than Ganguly. Talking about Dhoni’s leadership in limited-overs cricket, Gambhir also mentioned winning the ICC World T20 2007, ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 and ICC Champions Trophy 2013 – only captain to win three different ICC trophies.
Gambhir told Star Sports show Cricket Connected, “MS Dhoni was a better captain than Sourav Ganguly in white-ball cricket, especially if you talk about the trophies alone. T20 World Cup, Champions Trophy, 50-over World Cup – there is nothing else left to win in ICC tournaments as he has won everything. As a captain, obviously you cannot have a better record. So, I have no doubt that in white-ball cricket MS Dhoni has an upper hand over Sourav Ganguly.”
Gautam Gambhir also talked about the reason for MS Dhoni’s huge success as a captain
However, Gambhir also pointed out why Dhoni became hugely successful as a captain than Ganguly. He mentioned that Dhoni had enough experienced and world-class players while Ganguly mostly managed an inexperienced Indian team.
Gambhir added, “When Ganguly took over as captain he had an inexperienced team, players like Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and Mohammad Kaif were raw. When MS Dhoni took over as captain all these players were world-beaters, so that probably was the reason. MS Dhoni didn’t convert them into players who could handle pressure better.”
Gautam Gambhir also led the Indian team in six ODIs between November 2010 and December 2011 where India won all those matches. During that period, Gambhir handled the leadership role in the absence of regular Indian captain MS Dhoni.