Former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir has opined that MS Dhoni failed to give enough ‘match-winners’ to his successor Virat Kohli, who was appointed as the full-time skipper in 2017. Gambhir, who made his Test comeback under Kohli, opined that India only had Virat and Rohit Sharma after the departures of players like Sourav Ganguly, who led Team India for six years and gave India world-beaters.

During a chat with ESPNCricinfo, Gambhir said, “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.”

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Ganguly, who was appointed at the Indian skipper in 1999, captained India to 21 wins in 49 Tests. In 146 ODIs, India registered wins in 76 matches under his captaincy. They also won the NatWest Series in 2002 and made it to the final of the 2003 World Cup, where they were defeated by mighty Australia.

Talking of Dhoni, he led the young Indian team to win the inaugural edition of the T20 World Cup. Four years later, Team India went on to lift the 50-over World Cup in2011 after a gap of 28 years. In 2013, Dhoni became the first-ever skipper to lead a team to three ICC trophies when India lifted the Champions Trophy.

It remains to be India’s last successful campaign in an ICC event. They did make it to the second round of next three ICC trophies under Dhoni but failed to win.

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In 2014, Dhoni announced his retirement from Test cricket and Kohli took the captaincy reins. In 2017, Dhoni handed over the captaincy baton to Kohli in all the formats. The likes of Yuvraj and Harbhajan were available when Kohli became the captain but they didn’t get many opportunities. The most successful Indian Test captain, Kohli has led India to 33 wins in 55 matches.