Former Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara has rated MS Dhoni as a better limited-overs batsman than Sourav Ganguly. MS Dhoni and Sourav Ganguly are both being compared by many cricket boffins recently and Sangakkara has also joined the debate. Sangakkara reckons that Dhoni achieved great success as a finisher and that is why he has hailed him as a better white-ball batsman.
It is never easy to find success as a finisher, as the batsman has to hit the ground running after coming out to bat. There are tricky situations and one has to be at the top of the game. MS Dhoni has an average of 50.57 and he batted mostly at six for the major part of his career.
Thus, Dhoni deserves all the credit for doing a fine job as a finisher. Dhoni achieved great success as he was able to add the finishing touches to the team’s innings. In fact, Dhoni has been a master in taking the game deep and hence gave himself the best chance to win the match.
Dhoni also has remained unbeaten on 84 occasions in the 50-overs version, which goes to show that he has finished the innings on a high for the team.
On the other hand, Sourav Ganguly always batted in the top order in his white-ball career. Ganguly achieved great success while opening the batting with legendary batsman Sachin Tendulkar.
Meanwhile, Kumar Sangakkara believes Sourav Ganguly is a better Test batsman than MS Dhoni. Ganguly was more technically correct and got better results in the red-ball version of the game.
“In one-day cricket, the ability to finish is always to me, very, very tough. So, I would go with MS for sure in limited overs cricket, in white-ball cricket just because he batted at that tougher finisher position, but in Test cricket, without a doubt, Ganguly every day,” Sangakkara said on the Cricket Connected Show on Star Sports during the special ‘Ganguly vs Dhoni survey’ segment.
Meanwhile, MS Dhoni also had a better strike rate than Sourav Ganguly in the white-ball format. Dhoni scored 10773 runs in 350 ODI matches whereas Ganguly amassed 11363 runs in 311 matches.
Ganguly scored 7212 runs in 113 Test matches whereas Dhoni accumulated 4876 runs in 90 Test matches. Dhoni also scored 1617 runs in 98 T20I matches for the Indian team.
