Former Sri Lanka cricketer Kumar Sangakkara has recently claimed that Mahendra Singh Dhoni inherited and benefitted from the foundation laid by Sourav Ganguly as the Team India skipper.
Ganguly is widely renowned for building a fearless squad of Indian cricketers while also incorporating and providing the freedom to youngsters like Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, and Ashish Nehra during his time as the Indian captain.
Meanwhile, Team India under the leadership of Dhoni won the T20 World Cup in 2007, the ICC Men's World Cup in 2011 and the 2013 Champions Trophy.
"If Dada had an MS type player, his team was slightly more developed, I think you would have seen him win plenty more trophies. Dada was blessed to play or not blessed to play in an era where Australian cricket was at the forefront and dominating the world game as well which at the time the team had won the most during that period," Sangakkara was quoted as saying on Cricket Connected.
"You can be judged on a lot of things but sometimes you have to leave something behind and I think in that sense, Dada did a lot to create a wonderful legacy for others to inherit and MS benefitted from that. MS, exceptional player, unbelievable captain, again, has moved Indian cricket forward. But the foundation for all of that was laid by Dada for me," he further claimed.
Under Ganguly's captaincy, India won 21 out of 49 Tests while securing the NatWest Series in 2002 in style and also made the final of the 2003 World Cup.
Previously, ex-Indian opener Gautam Gambhir had also expressed his thoughts on how Dhoni enjoyed the fruits of Ganguly's hard work during his captaincy years.
Gambhir -- who played under the captaincy of both Ganguly and Dhoni -- also spoke on the topic of when Sourav ended his stint as the Indian skipper, provided MS with world-beaters when he took over the charge.
"When MS Dhoni finished (his captaincy stint), he hasn’t given enough quality players to Virat Kohli, apart from Virat Kohli himself and Rohit Sharma, or Jasprit Bumrah now."
"There are not too many world-beaters or probably people who win you tournaments," Gambhir had said.
