Gautam Gambhir vs MS Dhoni - Who is the better IPL captain?

Mahendra Singh Dhoni

The CSK team, after winning the trophy in 2010

Rated as the best finisher in the world, MS Dhoni's stint with the Chennai Super Kings franchise has made him one of the most successful T20 captains of all time. Though the skipper struggled with his new and injury-hit franchise Rising Pune Supergiants, the results while playing with the yellow jersey have been historic.

Becoming the first Indian captain to win the IPL, Dhoni also led the team to the playoffs in every single edition and got them the title twice. It was not just in the IPL, the team proved its success even in the Champions League T20 by winning the title in 2010.

It was evident that Dhoni has been the passkey in CSK's squad selection. Compared to Gambhir, Dhoni has been defensive in his approach and has very occasionally come out of his comfort zone to experiment with the starting XI.

With hardly any team changes being made after every game, Dhoni built an army that rarely saw new faces in the team. The likes of Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Murali Vijay and Mohit Sharma were lucky as they became a mainstay in the team, but names like Joginder Sharma and Manpreet Singh Gony have almost been erased from cricket records.

He does give a chance to someone who has been in a poor form but there have been a number of players who have warmed the chairs in the dugout; an example would be the young Baba Aparajith, who was in CSK for three years and now has followed Dhoni to RPSG, without getting a single chance in the playing XI.

The ability to perform under pressure has been the wicket-keeper’s greatest quality. Dhoni also built a balanced team unlike other franchises, there was no dependence on a single person to score or pick wickets. And if none of those worked, the captain himself would step in and take control of the game.

Luck has definitely favoured the 34-year-old, but his stats speak a lot too. He has led CSK in 129 matches and has a success rate of 60.93%. Though this season with RPSG has been a let-down, Dhoni's last match heroics against Kings XI Punjab, when he hit 23 runs of the final over was enough to prove why he is the best finisher in the world. As a captain of two IPL teams, Dhoni has won 83 matches and has 58.45% win rate.

The leadership skills and the constructive numbers definitely put ‘Captain Cool’ ahead of KKR's Gambhir.

Captain	Span	Total matches	Won	Lost	Success rate
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (CSK, RPSG)	2008-2016	143	83	59	58.45%
Gautam Gambhir (DD, KKR)	2009-2016	106	61	44	58.01%