New Delhi: Former India captain MS Dhoni has marginally edged out former captain and present BCCI president Sourav Ganguly as the more impactful captain in a special Star Sports Cricket Connected Captain's survey.
Both, Ganguly and Dhoni have been one of India's best captains and under their leadership, the Indian team have won memorable victories several times.
Under the captaincy of Ganguly, the Indian team became the runners-up in 2003 World Cup, while Team India, led by Dhoni, won the World Cup in 2011. Under Dhoni's captaincy, India also won the 2007 T20 World Cup and the 2013 Champions Trophy.
During the survey, two of India's most successful captains were judged on 8 parameters developed in association with ESPNCricinfo.
In each category an average score was calculated from each panel members' votes. The difference in points between the two greats came down to decimals.
In the end, Dhoni edged out Ganguly as India's greatest captain by less than half a point when the results were announced on the recent episodes of Cricket Connected English and Hindi.
Dhoni's performance with the bat while captain proved to be the difference.
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.
While Dhoni scored more points in the four categories of captaincy at home, ODI captaincy, titles won and performance as batsman while captaining the team.
A jury comprising former players, journalists and broadcasters from across the globe took part in the survey while Graeme Smith, Kumar Sangakkara, Gautam Gambhir, Irfan Pathan and Kris Srikkanth were among the guests for special Cricket Connected episode when the results were announced.
Speaking on Star Sports show Cricket Connected, former South Africa captain Graeme Smith sopke about the Test captaincy record of Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni at home.
''The memories that come to mind is that he (Ganguly) brought a hardness that perception wise hadn't been there before. He was certainly quite a fiery character on the field and he certainly was a huge pillar in the strength of Indian cricket and where it's gone to today,'' he said.(UNI)
