Former BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) president and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) owner N. Srinivasan on Tuesday revealed how Mahendra Singh Dhoni was appointed the captain of the Indian team ahead of the inaugural men’s World T20 in 2007.
“The IPL (Indian Premier League) was going to be announced. The Indian team was leaving for South Africa for the World T20. Rahul Dravid wanted to resign as captain. He had returned from England,” Srinivasan, the then BCCI treasurer, said during Sportstar’s South Sports Conclave in Chennai on Tuesday.
Watch Mr. N Srinivasan’s full session from the Sportstar South Sports Conclave here:
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“He [Dravid] was not satisfied with himself. I told him if you give up captaincy, they will drop you from the Indian team for the ODIs. What I said happened. He gave the letter to then president Mr. [Sharad] Pawar. Mr. Pawar immediately called Sachin [Tendulkar], professor [Ratnakar] Shetty and [Dilip] Vengsarkar.
“Sachin said “I will not be the captain”. Then who? Everybody looked around the room. I had a bird’s eye view of the whole situation. Then he [Pawar] pointed at a tall fellow with long hair. The idea was not that he would succeed. Almost facetiously he pointed and it turned out that the man’s name was Dhoni and the rest is history. He went and won the World Cup.”
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Dhoni remains the only captain to lift all three ICC trophies - the 50-over World Cup (2011), the T20 World Cup (2007) and the Champions Trophy (2013) - and he also took India to the top of the ICC Test rankings.
India’s win in the 2007 WT20, where it beat archrival Pakistan in the final, led to the emergence of the IPL, which gave a huge fillip to Indian cricket and established the BCCI as the global power in the sport.
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