Enough to still be off the opinion that Ganguly was the best Captain for India.
Of course, that does not mean I don’t rate the great Pataudi. I simply think that Ganguly achieved success that was unparalleled in Indian cricket. He instilled confidence and even “attitude” that allowed them to take on the best side of the world and almost come out on top. Aside from the great battles with Australia, he also led India to their first ever series win against Pakistan. No Indian Captain had ever achieved that before!
Well - their first win
in Pakistan. They'd never won so much as a single Test there before. They had beaten Pakistan at home before tho.
Ganguly certainly did achieve success that was unparralleled in Indian cricket history - but so, in his time, did MAK. Around the time of his captaincy, India could fairly well be argued to be the best side in The World. He didn't win as many overseas Tests as Ganguly did, nowhere near, but he did captain around the time (interchanged with Wadekar) that India had their first spell of consistently winning abroad.
MAK, however, unquestionably did as good a job if not more of one than Ganguly in confidence-instilling. It's always dangerous to quote CricInfo profiles, but his reflects reasonably what I've read elsewhere: "more than anything else, he led Indian cricket out of its morass of defeatism and instilled in his fellow cricketers a belief that winning was possible".
Exactly what Ganguly was famous for. But MAK did it at a time it'd never been done before.
Also, MAK seems to have been a better cricket tactician than Ganguly. I've always said that Ganguly was pretty poor in this respect, same as Clive Lloyd. For this reason, I've always considered MAK and Frank Worrell much their superiors.