MS Dhoni or Sourav Ganguly? Former Team India opener Virender Sehwag picks better captain among the famed duo

Over the years, Team India have been blessed with some brilliant captains. Post the match-fixing scandal, Indian cricket was reinvented during the Sourav Ganguly-era. Under Ganguly, India started competing while playing overseas at regular intervals and reached the final of the 2003 World Cup.

Apart from this, India ended as joint-winners of the 2002 Champions Trophy, won the 2002 Natwest Trophy, Test series versus Pakistan (in 2004) in the neighbouring country and drew the away series in Australia and England. However, India didn't win ICC titles during the current BCCI President's captaincy tenure. India weren't regarded as one of the strongest teams, in terms of temperament needed for winning ICC or multi-nation finals.

Nonetheless, Ganguly backed a whole lot of youngsters such as Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Mohammed Kaif, Irfan Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, MS Dhoni, etc. All of them made a mark in their respective careers and served the national side for long.

After Ganguly, and Rahul Dravid's tenure, MS Dhoni took over. His astute leadership skills, calm and composed nature and ability to switch between being aggressive and defensive in his tactics won praises from all corners. Under him, India won all ICC titles but slipped way behind in Tests while playing overseas. Moreover, while he did a fabulous job, half of the side he got was groomed by Ganguly-Dravid & Co.

Recently, Virender Sehwag named the better captain among the two cricketers. He said on RJ Raunak's Youtube show "13 Jawab Nahi", "I feel captaincy-wise, both of them were great. But I feel the best amongst the two was Ganguly because he built the team from the onset, took in new players, and rebuilt a unit. He taught India to win matches abroad, we drew Test matches, won some abroad under him."

“Dhoni was lucky in the sense that he got the same team to lead that Ganguly had nurtured, so they both were great but better was Sourav Ganguly,” he added.

While opinions may differ and the debate might go on for long, it is safe to say both Ganguly and Dhoni deserve a lot of credit for taking India to the top since 2000.