There Have Been Better Skippers Than MS Dhoni, Says Gautam Gambhir

Former India, skipper MS Dhoni, is arguably the best leader the country have produced since they started playing cricket. But former India cricketer Gautam Gambhir feels although Dhoni leads in statistics, but there have been better captains than him.

Dhoni is not the best captain: Gambhir

Meanwhile, since MS Dhoni took the baton from Rahul Dravid after the debacle in ICC World Cup in 2007, Indian cricket has only gone forward. He immediately won the inaugural edition of the ICC World T20 with a bunch of young cricketers and then took India to the number one spot in the Test rankings. He is also the only skipper to win the three ICC titles. He has led India in 60 Tests, 200 ODIs and 72 T20Is winning 27, 110 and 41 games, respectively. Only current India skipper Virat Kohli is in line to break Dhoni’s record of 27 Test wins. Kohli needs only two more victories to leapfrog MS Dhoni to lead India to the most Test wins.

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Although statistics say that the Jharkhand-born cricketer is the best in the business, Gautam Gambhir had a different opinion. The cricketer-turned politician cited the names of Sourav Ganguly, Anil Kumble and Virat Kohli as captains who have led India to greater heights. Moreover, Gambhir also added that while it is not right to give him all the credits, it isn’t right either to blame when things go wrong.

“If you see the statistics, then he (Dhoni) is the best captain,” Gambhir said to TV9. “But that doesn’t mean that other captains have done badly. Sourav Ganguly has done good captaincy; we have won outside under him. Under Virat Kohli’s captaincy, we have won ODI series in South Africa and Test series in Australia.

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It is true that MS Dhoni has won us two World Cups (2007 and 2011) but it is not fair to give all credit to the captain for success and criticise only him when it doesn’t go your way. Captains like Anil Kumble have done the job though not for long; Rahul Dravid also led India to win in England,” he added.

Previously, Gautam Gambhir had revealed that the best captain he has played under was Anil Kumble. Meanwhile, MS Dhoni, who is in the twilight of his cricketing career will look to play one more series in India before announcing his retirement from international cricket. The veteran cricketer has struggled to score runs at a good pace and will look hope bid farewell gracefully.