If one has to chose the best Indian cricket captain, it has to be either n DHONI and GANGULY. Some might argue that Kapil was the one who got us the first moment of glory at the international level and had a pretty good record too, but it wasn’t until Ganguly took over that India made its mark at the world stage and after Gangly the baton was carried forward successfully by Dhoni.

If records be believed than Dhoni clearly has an upper hand over Ganguly. Moreover his achievements of making India the world champions in T20 and ODIs add to his CV, but in a game like cricket, records are “mere records” and we need to look at the bigger picture to select the winner between these two geniuses.

While Dhoni received a team in pretty good shape; it was handed over to Ganguly at a time when things were not going in the right direction for Indian cricket and off the field drama(match fixing scandal) took center stage rather than the on field heroics. Ganguly had his job cut out, he had to rebuild a team that was standing on a precipice and facing a downfall. He did a tremendous job of building the team around the senior players with an eclectic mix of youngsters,which augured very well for India in the long run; although he could not get India that elusive trophy which it had been craving for since 1983, reaching the finals of the World Cup and that too in South Africa (with pace and bounce considered as India’s nemesis) was a laudable job to say the least.

It was under his leadership that India stopped losing sleep over playing in overseas condition; and who would forget his bravado at the LORDs after winning the NATWEST trophy!! Such was his charisma that India was not afraid even of the Aussies,whom the entire cricketing world feared at that point. He laid the foundation of the glorified present of Indian cricket which we are enjoying today.

Dhoni on the other hand, had received a team full of proven talent.Yes we did win two World Cups under him but he had a talented pool of players to pick from and the victory therefore should not be solely credited to the captain; moreover who knows, had Ganguy got a chance to lead India in a World Cup in the subcontinent, we might have won the cup long back.

With a series of dismal performances in the recent past Dhoni has attracted quite a few critics,who believe that his defensive mindset is just not good enough to win Test matches on foreign soil. His supporters will quickly jump to his rescue claiming that we don’t have a decent bowling attack but then getting the best out of what one has is the trademark of a great leader isn’t it?

Ganguly is the best captain of the Indian team, Dhoni is the captain of the best Indian team.