Dravid rates Ganguly, Dhoni as best captains

Rahul Dravid on Wednesday gave a huge thumbs-up to the captaincy skills of Sourav Ganguly and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, saying while the former was passionate about his job, the latter is "a great leader by example".

"All the captains had something. The two captains that I played under the longest were Ganguly and Dhoni. Both of them were right (for the job) at the time they led India," said Dravid.

Dravid, who retired from International cricket in March, was speaking at the launch of 'Timeless Steel', a collection of essays and articles about him, published by Disney and compiled by Espncricinfo.

"Ganguly had a passion for the job. He had a desire to win. He was willing to do whatever it took to win.

"Dhoni had probably a more mature team. He is a great leader by example. Someone whom I have always admired for his ability to remain balanced and have the sense of equanimity about his captaincy," he said.

Dravid said he loved reading books.

"Reading was a way to escape because I thought about cricket a lot. And in books I found my release. I hated at the end of the day to talk about cricket with someone else, because I was talking about it with myself all the time. It took a lot of pressure off me," he said. The former India captain said he enjoyed reading Hardy Boys and Archie comics in school.

"(In college) I wasn't attending too many classes. We used to sit at chai shop or cycle stand and my friends used to discuss about books. So they suggested some books to me. So, I sort of picked that up in college. I found that it was a great way to switch off and relax. With books I found that you could escape from cricket.

However, even for reading, he prefers sports.

"I love sports. I am one of the sports junkies. Some of my best readings have been on sports outside of cricket. It has helped me to understand how other sports or how other teams and players have functioned.

"I was in the hockey team in school and played a bit of badminton at club. I follow tennis and golf. I am not a big fan of motor racing, but other than that I follow sports. I don't think I was good enough to play any," he said.