In a recent interview, out of favour Indian all-rounder Yuvraj Singh revealed that while Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni were both very good in their own right as skippers, he would personally rate the former higher since he was a special leader. Over the last couple of decades, the tag of India's most successful captain has passed on from Ganguly to Dhoni, with Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble handling the mantle of leadership briefly in the middle. In that sense, Dhoni has been a worth successor to Ganguly. At the same time, it wouldn't be difficult to understand why Yuvraj feels Ganguly is the better of the two leaders. The Prince of Bengal definitely had a tougher task on hand.
When Sourav Ganguly took over the leadership of Team India, the players' morale was on an all-time low following the match fixing revelations. India had lost two of their best players in Mohammad Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja to the controversy. Even further, Sachin Tendulkar refused to lead the team out of a crisis. This is where Ganguly took over, and slowly but surely, transformed the team into a match-winning and highly competitive outfit. His methods weren't always traditional, but it worked for the team. Further, Ganguly's aggressive attitude helped the team improve by leaps and bounds.
The biggest change in the Indian team under Ganguly was that they started winning abroad with better frequency, as compared to earlier times. In fact, with Ganguly at the helm, India drew series' in Australia and England, both times against highly strong opponents. The Natwest triumph at Lord's was a watershed moment in India's ODI history and culminated with them reaching the final of the World Cup in South Africa a year later, in which they were completely outplayed by Australia. Also, it was under Ganguly that a new generation of match-winners came to the fore in the form of Sehwag, Yuvraj, Harbhajan and Zaheer.
Dhoni has also had his moments under the sun. In fact, he is the only captain in world cricket to have captured all ICC tournaments in the shorter formats -- World T20, World Cup and Champions Trophy. But, it is in the Test format that his leadership has been exposed. Except for the home series against Australia early last year, India have been woeful under him. India have now lost 13 Tests away from home under Dhoni in the last three years, winning just one. Further, Dhoni's negative captaincy has also come under the scanner. He has hardly taken any proactive steps to try and stop the flow of losses.
Unlike Ganguly, who had to build a team from scratch, Dhoni was handed over a team that was at its peak. Of course, with time, the legends faded away. It would be wrong not to give credit to Dhoni for the manner in which he has led India to some incredible wins, particularly in the shorter formats. At the same time, it must be mentioned that Dhoni couldn't capitalise on the team's talent completely. An example being of Yuvraj himself, who hasn't flourished as well as he did under Ganguly, the World Cup triumph notwithstanding. Perhaps, it has something to do with Dhoni's captaincy.
--By A Cricket Analyst
