Sourav Ganguly had to work very hard, MS Dhoni very lucky as captain – Gautam Gambhir

Former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir has opined that Sourav Ganguly had to work hard to build a team whereas MS Dhoni was lucky as he received an already established team. Ganguly had given confidence to players like Harbhajan Singh, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan and Yuvraj Singh, who all went on to have great careers for the team.

Furthermore, all these four players played a key role in India’s 2011 World Cup triumph. Yuvraj Singh had scored 362 runs and scalped 15 wickets to be the Man of the tournament whereas Zaheer Khan ended as the joint leading wicket-taker of the ODI showpiece with 21 wickets.

Dhoni took India to glory in the 2007 World T20, 2011 World Cup and 2013 World Cup whereas Ganguly achieved great success in the foreign conditions.

Gambhir added that Dhoni had a readymade team and made good use of the side which was created by former captain Sourav Ganguly.

“Dhoni has been a very lucky captain because he got an amazing team in every format. Captaining 2011 World Cup team was very easy for Dhoni because we had players like Sachin, Sehwag, myself, Yuvraj, Yusuf, Virat, so he had got the best teams, while Ganguly had to work very hard for it, and as a result Dhoni won so many trophies,” Gautam Gambhir said while talking to Star Sports Cricket Connected.

In fact, Sourav Ganguly had also recently said he was glad that the players whom he had backed in the formative years of their career, had played a key role in the success of the team in 2011 World Cup.

Both MS Dhoni and Sourav Ganguly led Indian cricket to great heights and got the best out of the players. In fact, both the leaders were always instrumental in the success of the team.

Dhoni led India in 332 matches across the three formats in which the team won 178 and lost 120. The former skipper had a winning percentage of 53.61.

Sourav Ganguly led India in 49 Test matches, in which the team won 21 and lost 13 whereas 15 ended in a draw.

On the other hand, Ganguly led in 146 ODI matches in which the team won 76 and lost 65 whereas there was no result in five games.