Legendary Indian captain MS Dhoni might not be with the national team anymore, however, his imprint is very much there on the side apart from the obvious fact that many of the current players including the likes of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami and Axar Patel made their debuts under him. Since Kohli was Dhoni's successor as the captain of the Indian team across formats, the duo's bond lasted beyond the boundary rope of a cricket ground.
When Dhoni retired, Kohli led a heartfelt tribute for the former skipper saying that he will always be his captain. The bond both shared was more than just colleagues or teammates, especially when Kohli revealed that Dhoni was the only one, apart from his coach and family, to reach out to him when he was down and out during early to mid-2022. "The only person who, apart from my childhood coach and family…genuinely reached out to me has been MS Dhoni," Kohli had said on the RCB podcast before the start of 2023 IPL on the 2022 phase when he finally broke the long-running century drought in Asia Cup 2022.
Recently, at a corporate event, Dhoni was asked about his relationship with Kohli and what propelled him to text Kohli despite being a very private person. Dhoni replied saying, "I'm not great when it comes to being in touch with people but yeah certain times when you feel someone needs you, you just drop in a message." The video of the same was shared by the user himself on X (formerly Twitter).
Kohli had alluded to the same personality trait of Dhoni during that podcast saying, "He reached out to me and you can rarely get in touch with him. If I call him on any random day, 99 per cent he will not pick up (the phone), because he just does not look at the phone.
"So, for him to reach out to me…twice it has happened now and one of the things that he'd mentioned in the message while reaching out to me was that: ‘when you are expected to be strong and looked at as a strong individual people forget to ask how are you doing?'" Kohli had mentioned. By February 2022, in a space of three months, Kohli was removed from captaincy across all formats after voluntarily stepping down from the T20Is.
Dhoni mentioned that he was asked about the same recently during the shoot for JioHotstar which will be telecast during the IPL.
Kohli then had the worst IPL personally for himself where he averaged 22 through the season before returning scores of 11, 20, 1, 11, 16 and 17 in six innings across formats on the England tour. Following his maiden T20I ton in the Asia Cup, Kohli then just didn't look back and is still going strong with 82 centuries in international cricket.