While discussing …. no debating…… sorry sorry….. while fighting on this topic I heard a lot of rubbish things against MSD like ‘He is winning because of luck’ , ‘He is coming as a lower order batsman’ , ‘He is not a good wicket keeper’ , ‘He has changed his game’ , ‘He is not performing but only others in the team are performing’ and finally ‘His team is very much stronger than DADA’s team’. Are this all valid reasons against his captaincy?. I could only laugh after hearing all these non-sense.
| Name | Matches | Won | Lost | Drawn | Win % |
| Ganguly | 49 | 21 | 42.8 | ||
| MS Dhoni | 18 | 12 | 2 | 4 | 66.67 |
42.8 might look like a very good winning percentage. But in this 21 wins 6 were against minnows(Bangladesh –3 and Zimbabwe- 3). Now the winning percentage goes down to 37.5. If we do the same thing for MSD , his winning % will go down to 64.7. To my knowledge 37.5 is much lower than 64.7 (How about you?).
The next thing they say about Ganguly is that he is the one who made India to win test in overseas. Yes he won 4 overseas test series. But the interesting truth is that 2 against Bangladesh and 1 against Zimbabwe. The win against Pakistan is really a good win. In the mean while he lost 4 overseas test series. Even Dhoni have 2 overseas victories in this short duration(NZ-1,Ban-1).
Now comes the most important thing they (supporters) tell about Ganguly – his win against Australia in 2003(Series drawn). Is this the reason why they call him the best captain? Then we should include the new contender into the list ‘Sunil Gavaskar’ who had done the same thing in 1980. The supporters who raise their collars for this achievement should know that Ganguly lost the home test series(1-2) against Australia in the very next year.
The final thing – ‘MSD’s team is better than Ganguly’s team’ . But is it true?. Let us take a look at the team
Sachin, Ganguly, Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag, Srinath, Kumble, Nehra and Zaheer were in the Ganguly’s team.
The new team have Ohja for Kumble , Ghambir for Ganguly, Ishant for Srinath and Dhoni for Patel.
Now can you tell which is the stronger team?
Now let me deal with the negatives against MSD. ‘Luck favours Dhoni’. Yes luck favoured Dhoni in 50 ODI wins, 20 T20 wins and 12 test wins. He is the fastest Indian captain to reach 50 wins.
‘He is not a very good batsman’. Yes, he is a worst batsman who tops ICC ranking list for past 3 or 4 months with an average of 50.28.
As a wicket keeper he have 387 dismissals in his record.
‘He is coming as a lower order batsman’. This is the thing which I like about Dhoni. He is not playing for him but for his team. Is it a wiser decision to send Raina or Yuvraj to his position. But Dada did a blunder while dealing with such a situation. He came as opener even when is in very bad form instead of sending Sehwag. If you mistake that Dhoni cannot perform as higher order batsman then take a look at this
| Position | Avg | 50s | 100s |
| 2 | 49 | 1 | 0 |
| 3 | 82.75 | 6 | 2 |
| 4 | 81.55 | 8 | 1 |
| 5 | 52.96 | 6 | 3 |
| 6 | 38.75 | 9 | 0 |
| 7 | 39.26 | 4 | 1 |
I gave a lot of information about Ganguly and Dhoni but only now an important doubt raises in my mind – ‘How will they select a good captain?’ - By their performance during captaincy period or by their team winning records or by some other criteria.
If it is by his individual performance during his captaincy then MSD(avg 71) is in first position followed by Sachin, Gavaskar and Dravid. If it is by his teams performance then again Dhoni tops the list with 66.6% of winning record. Then how some idiots are supporting Ganguly.
