Former Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara recently talked about the captaincy skills of the former successful Indian captains Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni. The former Sri Lankan wicketkeeper-batsman also revealed his favourite captain between them.
Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni both played very crucial roles as the captain of the Indian national cricket team as they inspired the national team to achieve the bigger successes in international cricket.
Apart from their successful results as the captains in the home and away series along with some multi-nation tournaments, while Ganguly-led India won the ICC Champions Trophy 2002 (joint-winners with the hosts Sri Lanka) and finished as the runners-up in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003, Dhoni-led India won the ICC World T20 2007, ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 and ICC Champions Trophy 2013.
Dada did a lot to create a wonderful legacy for others to inherit and MS benefitted from that: Kumar Sangakkara
Talking about both those Indian captains, Kumar Sangakkara praised both Ganguly and Dhoni. However, the wicketkeeper-batsman also added that captain Ganguly set a wonderful legacy which helped captain Dhoni to achieve bigger success.
Sangakkara told Star Sports show Cricket Connected, “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 benefitted from that. MS, exceptional player, unbelievable captain, again, has moved Indian cricket forward. But the foundation for all of that was laid by Dada for me.”
Talking about his best choice among them, Sangakkara feels that Dhoni was the better limited-overs captain. Meanwhile, he has no doubt to choose Ganguly as the better Test captain than Dhoni.
Sangakkara commented, “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.”