'He is going to be a star': Sourav Ganguly described MS Dhoni as a 'chabuk batsman' during debut series
Sourav Ganguly brought a revolution in Indian cricket after taking over the captaincy in 2000. The former captain changed the mindset of the Indian team by playing aggressive cricket in overseas conditions. Ganguly was the main man behind several cricketer's rise at international stage be it MS Dhoni, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh or Zaheer Khan.
Joy Bhattacharya, former Kolkata Knight Riders Team Director, revealed how Ganguly described Dhoni to him during his debut series in 2004 against Bangladesh. Joy said Ganguly labelled Dhoni as a 'chabuk batsman'.
“I remember being on a flight to Bangladesh in 2004 and Sourav was just telling me ‘we have this chabuk new batsman’. ‘Chabuk’ means whipped. He said ‘chabuk new batsman’ who has come out. You have to see him, MS Dhoni is going to be a star,’” said Bhattacharya in 22 yarns podcast of Oaktree Sports hosted by Gaurav Kapur uploaded on Spotify and Youtube.
Joy further claims that Ganguly backed the talented player even if they failed to scored as he had a strong belief in them.
“One thing he was just fantastic at was that he would just see you and he would know the talent. If you have the talent, he would back you. It didn’t mean that you could not get runs, you could fail, it didn’t matter to him. Because he knew on the day you had the ability to score,” Bhattacharya went on to add.
Joy also talked about Ganguly's brave call to make Sehwag open the innings was a game-changer for Indian cricket.
“Look at Yuvraj, look at Sehwag. You know what he does to Sehwag. He turns around and says to him ‘look the middle order is too crowded. If you want to play for India, you have to open. There is me, Tendulkar, Laxman, Dravid... where are you going to get a chance? Yuvraj Singh did not get a chance for so many years because the middle order is crowded. Go and open’. And what happened was that Sehwag opened and the history was made,” Bhattacharya added.
