Dada Created Wonderful Legacy For Others and MS Dhoni Benefited from That: Kumar Sangakkara

A lot is being said these days about Sourav Ganguly’s captaincy and how he changed the dynamics of the team. The latest addition in the list is that of former Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara.

Speaking on Star Sports show Cricket Connected, he said, “Giving that Indian team a lot of steel, self-belief, character. Forget about winning at home. I think all sides are comfortable winning at home. But it’s about going outside in test conditions that you are not familiar with against the best in the world and having that fire, hunger and belief to win. And I think that’s where Dada made the biggest difference to Indian cricket.”

He goes on to praise Ganguly and says that he left behind a legacy and MS Dhoni was benefited by it in the years to come. “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 benefited from that.”

Purely in terms of batting abilities of the skipper, he went with MS Dhoni in shorter formats, but it was Ganguly who made it to the Test team.

“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.”

MS Dhoni finished narrowly ahead of Sourav Ganguly in a Star Sports Cricket Connected Survey to determine the greater Indian captain. Dhoni’s performance with the bat while captain proved to be the difference. In each category an average score was calculated from each panel members’ votes. After the results of each were totalled together, Dhoni was ahead by less than half a point.

Ganguly scored higher than Dhoni in four categories – Captaincy Away from Home, Transformational effects of captaincy on team, Success of team handed over to the next captain and Overall impact. Dhoni scored more points in the four categories of Captaincy at Home, ODI captaincy, Titles won and Performance as Batsman while captaining the team. The difference in points between the two greats came down to decimals.