Former Indian opener, Gautam Gambhir reckons that MS Dhoni was lucky for getting the opportunity to lead one of the best teams in the world during his captaincy. The cricketer-turned-politician said that a lot of credit for Dhoni’s success as teh Test skipper solely goes to Zaheer Khan, who is the second-highest wicket-taker for India in Test cricket after legendary Kapil Dev when it comes to pacers.
Gautam Gambhir added that Dhoni was blessed to have Zaheer as he also feels that Sourav Ganguly should be given credit for bringing a player like Zaheer in the squad. During a show in Star Sports, Gambhir said, “The reason Dhoni became such a successful captain in test cricket is because of Zaheer Khan.”
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He further added, “He was a big blessing that Dhoni got, for which credit goes to Ganguly. According to me, Zaheer has been India’s best world-class bowler. Dhoni has been a very lucky captain because he got an amazing team in every format.”
Notably, Zaheer took maximum, 116 wickets under the captaincy of MS Dhoni, while during the captaincy of Ganguly he scalped 102 wickets. The southpaw pacer has maintained an average of 30.62 with the ball while playing under the leadership of Dhoni. On the other hand, while playing for Ganguly, Zaheer had a bowling average of 35.98.
Further, Gautam said that leading the World Cup-winning Indian team became easy for Dhoni as some stalwarts like, Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, and Virat Kohli were there in the team. He again asserted his point that Ganguly had built the team from the ashes while “lucky captain” MS got a readymade team.
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Explaining it further, Gautam said, “Captaining 2011 World Cup team was very easy for Dhoni because we had players like Sachin, Sehwag, Myself, Yuvraj, Yusuf, Virat, so he had got the best teams, while Ganguly had to work very hard for it, and as a result Dhoni won so many trophies.”
