Who is Best, MSD or DADA ?

Being the captain of a cricket team is not a ceremonial job, it’s a challenging role that only a few can perform. Many, some of them the best cricketers we've seen, have failed to cope with the burden of captaincy despite having ruled over the sport with their unmatched cricketing skills. What's even more difficult is to pick the right candidate for leadership.

When it comes to Indian team, being a cricket captain is the highest pedestal which every player aim for. The honour comes with 24/7 analysis and being the target of an excess of emotions ranging from one extreme to another. India's cricketing history has been shaped by its captains, as much as the great batsmen and bowlers of this nation. In last 82 years, India has witnessed 31 skippers in Tests and 22 in ODIs. These captains have moulded the Indian cricket team in many different ways.

Vijay Hazare supervised India's first ever win in 1952, MAK Pataudi was famous for injecting India with that fighting spirit, leading his team to its first overseas Test and series win in 1968. Kapil Dev lifted the World Cup for India in 1983. Sunil Gavaskar led the team which won World Championship in 1985. Mohammad Azharuddin became India's most successful ODI skipper during 90’s. Sourav Ganguly led a rejuvenation Indian team which battered by match-fixing scandals, making them a force to reckon with globally. And MS Dhoni reached extraordinary success levels, before plunging into equally mysterious depths.

To begin, one of the major points of argument when everyone begin to compare Dhoni and Ganguly as captains has to be the time period & team strength. It is a well-known fact that Ganguly never had the same quality of team Dhoni has. Ganguly’s legacy will largely remain reinstalling people’s faith back in the game, post the match fixing disaster, and laying the foundations a dominant and aggressive Indian team which had the zeal to win, both in India and abroad. However, everyone fails to recognize the existence of John Wright. He was also involved in the process of rebuilding the team with Ganguly.

Ganguly positioned the Indian Team as an aggressive unit, for the first time in history people felt that Indian Team can give fight even in the difficult and unfavourable condition. Be it the Great Eden Garden victory against Australia, the Natwest series against England, India almost ruining Steven Waugh’s farewell in Australia and the 2003 World Cup. Ganguly’s team gave us some memorable moments. 

Ganguly took important decision during his tenure like asking Dravid to keep behind the wickets, forcing Srinath out of retirement, asking VVS to bat at 3 at Eden Garden Test against Australia, shaping Sehwag and Yuvraj are the absolutely brilliant work of his clever mind and no gamble or luck involved.  

Whereas, in global events, Dhoni’s record is stupendous, winning both the major ODI tournaments, which are 2011 World Cup and 2013 ICC Champions Trophy. In addition, Dhoni also won the T20 World Cup in 2007, a format which Ganguly missed during his international career.

Dhoni showed discipline, guts, winning strategy and his innovative skills to the team, he is the benchmark for the next generation captains. He took a brave decision of dropping key players like Sehwag, Gambhir, Harbhajan, Yuvraj and Zaheer when they are not playing well. An interesting side to this is the differentiation between bad and consistently bad performances. Our huge population has significant fan followings of each of these key players. As soon as one of them is dropped, we hear anti-Dhoni statements from all the sides and criticisms on social networks. The moment Dhoni scores less in 2-3 matches, the demands for him to step down reach the skylines. Also it is most important to understand the difference between an opener and a middle order batsmen. I wonder how one can justify the constant place of Dhoni in the rankings if his form was so bad for long time.

To a certain extent, the style of Dhoni’s captaincy combined with a good team and made sure that India did not depend on one or two game-changing decisions for victory. He took a responsible in developing Yuvraj as the all-rounder, developing Jadeja & Ashwin skills that are now showing results.

The record speaks for itself. The Two World Cups, two IPL trophies, Champions League, so many series wins, consistent ranking in the two main forms of the game, constant selection as captain of World XI, consistent ranking as top 10 batsmen in ICC Player Rankings; these are only some of the large number of statistics Dhoni has in his favour. Whereas, Ganguly’s team failed in the final against the best team in the world, Dhoni’s men conquered that final obstacle at home, winning the World Cup after 28 years.

The results speak for themselves. India emerged as a stronger side under Ganguly away from home in Tests. Having a poor record away from the turning tracks at home, Ganguly’s Team India fought to change the popular perception. Whereas this is the biggest spot in Dhoni’s otherwise glowing captaincy record. 16 Test losses, 10 of them on a trot, have done great damage to his Test credentials overseas.

Whitewashes in England and Australia in 2011-2012, followed by winless tours of South Africa and New Zealand in 2013-14, and an embarrassing collapse in England after taking the lead at Lord’s in 2014, followed by the winless tour of Australia has absolutely crushed fans’ confidence in his leadership in Tests overseas.

Despite an overwhelmingly poor record in Tests, Dhoni’s team has fared quite well in ODIs overseas. It goes on to show how a change in format does wonders for Dhoni. While Ganguly’s team was competitive across formats overseas, it’s only ODIs where Dhoni’s leadership has stood good results away from home, as is evident from India’s 2013 Champions Trophy victory in England, the same venue where India lost 0-4 in 2011 and 1-3 in 2014 in Tests.

Despite the popular opinion which once prevailed that MS Dhoni is a ‘lucky’ captain, the only ‘luck’ that works in cricket is at the toss of a coin. The rest is a result of how a player performs on the field.

As a skipper, Dhoni’s record is better than Ganguly as a batsman. However, Dhoni’s record is skewed when it comes to home and away performances. In India, he averages 51.75, but the number drops to 32.46 away from home. Ganguly averages 43.41 outside India, while his home record as a Test batsman is abysmal, with an average of 29.93. Dhoni trumps Ganguly as an ODI batsman too, having earned the title of the best finisher of his era. While Ganguly formed the greatest opening partnership with Sachin, his statistics fall well short of Dhoni's feats as an ODI batsman.

On the other hand, under Dhoni’s leadership, Chennai Super Kings/Indian team has been the most successful team. His innovative captaincy, maintaining a sense of calmness, order around the team and personal performances as captain has turned the tide for the national and CSK team many a times. Ganguly on the other hand would lead in terms of player management, ability to take on oppositions both on and off the field, and ability to win test matches abroad.

Under Ganguly, the bigwigs – Sachin, Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag, Kumble and himself – being the permanent fixtures, granted a more settled look to the Test side. However, Dhoni has led India through troubled times. After the disastrous tours of England and Australia, senior players have moved out and he has been leading the side through some tough times. But if one looks at him as compared to captains like Kapil or Ganguly, he tends to go on the defensive a lot more than them. But he is not risk-averse and has taken some difficult decisions throughout his tenure.

The rational side would like to go with Dhoni, and the emotional side with Ganguly. But given the way we approach Cricket, I would go ahead with Dhoni. For showing all of us that we can beat Australia on their soil, we can lift ICC trophies, we can chase consequently massive scores (350+) against best bowling teams, and more importantly even losing with a fight & discipline.