Is Dhoni a better captain than Ganguly? This special survey says so!

ourav Ganguly (R) gets ready to bat as Mahendra Singh Dhoni (L) walks past during a training session at the Andhra Cricket Association stadium in Visakhapatnam, 16 February 2007. Pic/ AFP

It's no denying that Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni are two names that changed the face of Indian cricket over a decade. To celebrate the birthdays of two of India's greatest leaders on the cricket field - MS Dhoni (July 7) & Sourav Ganguly (July 8) - Star Sports, India's leading broadcaster, conducted a survey in which the two captains were judged on 8 parameters developed in association with ESPNCricinfo. In the end, Dhoni edged out Ganguly as India's greatest captain by the slimmest of margins when the results were announced on the recent episodes of Cricket Connected English & Hindi.

MS Dhoni finished narrowly ahead of Sourav Ganguly in a Star Sports Cricket Connected Survey to determine the greater Indian captain. Dhoni's performance with the bat while captain proved to be the difference. In each category, an average score was calculated from each panel members' votes. After the results of each were totalled together, Dhoni was ahead by less than half a point.

Also Read: Foundation for all MS Dhoni did was laid by Sourav Ganguly, feels Kumar Sangakkara

Ganguly scored higher than Dhoni in four categories - Captaincy Away from Home, Transformational effects of captaincy on the team, Success of team handed over to the next captain and Overall impact. Dhoni scored more points in the four categories of Captaincy at Home, ODI captaincy, Titles won and Performance as Batsman while captaining the team. The difference in points between the two greats came down to decimals.

Some of the biggest names in world cricket took part in the survey and Graeme Smith, Kumar Sangakkara, Gautam Gambhir, Irfan Pathan and Kris Srikkanth were among the guests for special Cricket Connected episodes on Sunday night in English & Hindi when the results were announced.

Also Read: Gautam Gambhir: MS Dhoni has been a lucky captain, got an amazing team

A jury comprising players, writers and broadcasters from across the globe rated each player out of ten in eight different categories:

• TEST CAPTAINCY RECORD (AT HOME)
• TEST CAPTAINCY RECORD (AWAY)
• ODI CAPTAINCY RECORD (TEST & ODI)
• TEAMS THEY INHERITED AND HOW THEY WERE TRANSFORMED (ACROSS FORMATS)
• TEAMS THEY LEFT BEHIND (ACROSS ALL FORMATS)
• BATTING RECORD AS CAPTAIN (TEST & ODI)
• MAJOR ACHIEVEMENTS (ACROSS FORMATS)
• OVERALL IMPACT AS CAPTAIN

After totalling up all the scores in each category, Dhoni was the winner by 0.4 points.

The scores were as follows:

Among the players who voted in the survey included experts on the recent episode of Cricket Connected - former South Africa captain Graeme Smith, former Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara and former India openers Gautam Gambhir and Kris Srikkanth.

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