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Is MS Dhoni a BETTER Captain than Sourav Ganguly?
When India won the 1983 world cup, a lot of its credit was given to one man- Kapil Dev. He was the engine of the train. It would have been impossible without his fierce leadership, for India to achieve the unthinkable. But once Kapil Dev was no more captain after the 1987 world cup, Indian cricket went through a very turbulent phase. He was succeeded by Vengsarkar, Srikanth, Azharuddin and even the great Sachin Tendulkar. None of them could have a major influence over the team. The team was struggling and yearning for a perfect leader. To make matters worse, the Indian cricket team was hit by the match fixing scandal in the year 2000. In 2000, the Delhi police intercepted a conversation between a blacklisted bookie and the South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje in which they learnt that Cronje accepted money to throw matches. He also named Md.Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja. Both of them were banned from all forms of cricket. The Indian team was in a state of complete shock and was low on confidence and morale. But as they say, every cloud has a silver lining (which could not be perceived at that time), the scandal resulted in a change which revolutionarised Indian cricket forever.
Sourav Ganguly became the regular captain in both forms of cricket in 2000. Ganguly remained captain for the first 5 years of the 2000s and was the most successful captain, winning 21 of his 49 Test matches in charge and 73 of his 141 ODIs. He even led India to the final of the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2003. Ganguly was always a fighter by nature. He was enigmatic, aggressive and bold. His tenacious attitude passed into the team and reinstated the lost self confidence into the players. He was the first ever captain in the history of Indian cricket to win a series overseas. The Indian team performed a exceedingly well on a number of series on foreign soil including the NatWest series, drawing the Australia test series, Winning the Pakistan series after 40 years.
Now if you look at MS Dhoni as a captain, he became captain of ODI's and T20's in 2007 and of tests in 2008.Record wise MS Dhoni is the best captain India has ever produced. His record fairs much better than Sourav Ganguly. Under his captaincy, India won the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, CB Series of 2007–08, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in 2008 and 2010 against Australia 2–0 and 2011 Cricket World Cup in which India beat every previous world cup winning team. His Test, ODI record is best among all the Indian captains to date. He also led the team to their first ever bilateral ODI series wins in Sri Lanka and New Zealand. Under Dhoni's captaincy India became the first team after a gap of more than 20 Years to whitewash Australia in a Test series. Dhoni also led the Indian team to the number one position in ICC rankings in Test cricket for the first time.If one looks at the records, hands down, Dhoni is the greatest captain India has ever had, let alone he being better then Sourav.
But there is more to successful captaincy than just records. There was a lot of work that Sourav Ganguly had done which benefited Dhoni. Sourav took over the team when it was just hit by a match fixing scandal. The team was in shambles. There was no base, no foundation. Indian cricket was lost, and Sourav changed the attitude of the team through his style and provided the team with self belief. He taught the team not to think that they are inferior to any other team. The Indian team stopped fearing sides anymore and stopped losing mental battles against the opposition. He was a brilliant leader. He defended his team and team players every single time and as a good general, took responsibility when the team lost but let the team take the credit when they won. (A similar quality possessed by MSD).But Sourav changed the team's thinking. His mechanism revolutionarised the team psychology. Moreover, Sourav's stubborn attitude in the selection meetings provided India with great players like Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, and Ashish Nehra. All these players were drafted into the team by Sourav. He had rebuilt a team from nothing. Ganguly is credited with having nurtured the careers of many young players who played under him, and transforming the Indian team into an aggressive fighting unit. Sourav had set the foundation for a young ambitious Indian team and now the following captains had an easier task in front of them.
When Dhoni became the captain of the team in 2007, India was coming from the back of one of its worst world cup debacles. But Dhoni however did not have a team which was in tatters, it was not a turbulent phase. It was a made team which needed a bit of finishing. The attitude, mentality, quality was all there but they just needed to be exposed to its fullest potential. Dhoni did not have to make a new team, the team was more or less set and had a fixed crop of players, and moreover, he had the vital support of the most experienced heads in the dressing room to help him, including players like Sachin, Dravid, Laxman, and Kumble. It was much easier for Dhoni to settle down as a captain and take out the best from the team.Dhoni did not have a foundation to create. It was laid for him by Sourav. He just had to take over. Ganguly had constructed the building, It was now Dhoni's job to cement and varnish it.
I think it's a bit too early to say MSD is a better captain than Dada even though the records are screaming out MSD's superiority. I think MSD's true test will come when players like Sahin, Laxman, Dravid, Zaheer, retire from cricket. It will be interesting to see how Dhoni fits in players into their vacancy without comprising on the teams results. Even though the reserve strength of the team looks solid and bright, one still can't say what will happen when the greats retire.
Even though Sachin Tendulkar claimed Dhoni, to be the best captain he has played under. Tendulkar mentioned that it was Dhoni's calm influence that was rubbing off on all his team-mates and even under such extreme pressure from every corner the way Dhoni handles it and brings the best out of him was just incredible. Sourav Ganguly also said in an interview to a news channel that Dhoni is the all time greatest captain of India and he has a great record to support this credential.
But I think it's just a little early to say that. Let's just wait for a couple of more years and we will be in a perfect position to judge who is the better of the two maestros. At this moment I think it's fair to say that the tree Sourav planted is finally bearing fruit for Mahendra Singh Dhoni and more importantly Indian Cricket.
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