MS Dhoni : I was not a part of the conversation when I was made captain

MS Dhoni : I was not a part of the conversation when I was made captain

MS Dhoni has claimed that, in 2007, when the management was deciding on who to pick as the next captain of the team, he was not part of the discussion. Dhoni added that he has always felt that it was the senior players’ support for him that made BCCI choose him as the skipper of the Indian team.

Dhoni was picked as a captain of Team India for the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 which was organized in South Africa in September 2007 and he guided his team to the title as they defeated Pakistan in the thrilling final. He was, then, chosen as an ODI captain for the seven-match ODI series against Australia in the same year. The next year, he made his full-time Test captaincy debut during the fourth and final Test against Australia in Nagpur replacing Anil Kumble.

“That is again a very difficult one (laughs), because a lot of senior players would have supported me. I was not part of the conversation when I was made captain of the team. I feel that looking at everything, maybe it was the honesty that I had, and my ability to read the game," Dhoni told The Print in an interview.

"Reading the game is very important, and even though I was one of the youngest in the team at that point of time when asked about my views by a senior player, I was not afraid or hesitant to share my feelings about the game. It probably also had to do with the fact that I was quite good with the other team members in the squad at that point of time.”

Dhoni led India in 199 ODIs, out of which India won a 110 matches. He also captained India in 60 Test matches. Under his tenure, along with the World T20 in 2007, Indian cricket team also won 2011 World Cup, the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy, and also rose to the No.1 spot in the Test rankings.

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