'He's a trailblazer': Michael Vaughan names the better Indian captain between MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli

MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli have been two of the most successful captains produced by India. Under Dhoni, India won all three major ICC titles – the T20 World Cup in 2007, the 50-over World Cup in 2011 and the 2013 Champions Trophy – while reaching the top of the ICC Test rankings for the first time. Whereas, Kohli has proven to be India’s best Test captain of all time, leading the team to 36 wins from 60 matches. Also, it was under Kohli that India beat Australia on their turf for the first time in 70 years, as they won the 2018/19 Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2-1.

To pick the one over the other is not an easy choice to make, but Michael Vaughan has done exactly that. The former England captain was asked to name the better captain between the two and Vaughan did not hesitate, putting his point across like he always does… straight and blunt.

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“MS… MS, I think he’s the trailblazer, particularly in the white-ball and T20 game. He’s the best ever T20 captain by a good distance. I think what he brought to the Indian team was fantastic,” Vaughan told CricTracker.

Dhoni announced his retirement from Test cricket in January of 2015, after which Kohli took command of the Test side, even though he continued to play under the World Cup winning skipper till 2017. In February of that year, Dhoni stepped down as India’s limited-overs captain, giving the full reins of the team to Kohli.

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Under Kohli, India reached the final of the 2017 Champions Trophy and the semi-final of the 2019 ICC World Cup, but were eliminated. As far as an overall captain between the two is concerned, Vaughan went ahead with Dhoni, but called Kohli a superior leader in Tests.

“I would say that Virat is the better Test captain. Virat leads the Test team brilliantly so I would have Virat over MS in test cricket but in white-ball cricket is MS. But if you ask me for one… I had to only pick one across all formats, just as a captain, I would pick MS Dhoni,” Vaughan added.