In Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s illustrious career as a captain of the Indian Cricket Team, former India skipper Dilip Vengsarkar played an important role.
Vengsarkar was the chief of the national selection committee which named Dhoni as the captain of the Indian team for the T20 World Cup in South Africa in September 2007.
After Dhoni’s surprise announcement that he was quitting as the captain of ODI and T20 team, Vengsarkar recalled how once the wicketkeeper-batsman had dozed off while sitting next to him.
"When I had decided to make him the captain, I didn't know him as a person at all, so I thought I'd have a chat with him. When I heard that he was going to Mumbai from Kolkata to watch a match, I changed my flight, so that we could talk a bit. Both of us were the only ones in the 'business class' of that flight, which was two-and-half-hours long, so I thought that that was the best time to know more about him as a person,” Vengsarkar told the Times of India.
"However, the moment the flight took off, he dozed off, and only got up when we arrived at Mumbai. I had thought of making him the captain of the Indian team, but I couldn't talk to him,” he recalled.
Dhoni’s selection as the captain of T20 team in World Cup came as surprise to many as he had not even captained at the state level. However, Dhoni proved his critics wrong when he led the young team to World Cup victory.
Dhoni has led India in 199 ODI matches in which the team won 110 matches. He led the team in 72 T20Is in which India won 41 matches.
Under his captaincy, India won the ICC T20 World Cup in 2007, the ICC ODI World Cup in 2011, ICC Champions Trophy in 2013 and also reached the top of the Test rankings in 2009.
He has so far played 283 matches in the ODI format and has scores over 9,000 runs.
