New Delhi When Sourav Ganguly was the captain of the Indian team, he wanted Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the team for India’s historic tour of Pakistan in 2004 but the wicketkeeper-batsman missed coming into the team very closely. This was revealed by the then team coach John Wright in an interview.
Parthiv Patel was selected for the three-match Test series and Rahul Dravid was wicket-keeping in the five-match ODI series.
Wright said, “Dhoni almost came into the team for the tour of Pakistan in 2004. Ganguly strongly wanted him in the team. He was at the boundary line, and it was a decision that could go anywhere. But as it happened , We picked a successful Test team and Dhoni was not in it. ”
After 15 years, India won the Test series played in Pakistan 2–1 and captured the ODI series 3–2.
Wright, who was the coach of the team from 2000 to 2005, said, “This was the time when Dhoni started getting into the discussion at the national level. Ganguly used to say a lot of good things about him and he encouraged the youngsters who came in the team. But you don’t know how to turn things around. I first heard about Dhoni then. ”
Dhoni made his ODI debut in December 2004 against Bangladesh in Chittagong. In December 2005, he played his first international Test match in Chennai against Sri Lanka.
From here, Dhoni did not look back and later he became one of the greatest captains of the country.
Wright added, “And Dhoni was soon starting to read the game. It is a good and strategic captain. He is obviously one of India’s greatest captains. He has been a great player for India. His record about it I tell. ”
Dhoni has played 350 ODIs for India and captained the team in 200 ODIs. His success percentage has been 55. Has represented the country 98 times in T20 matches and captained the team in 72 matches. His success percentage here has been 58.33. Dhoni played 90 Test matches for the country, captaining 60 of them. Here he was 45 percent successful.
Dhoni is the only captain in the world who has won all the ICC trophies – ODI World Cup, T20 World Cup, Champions Trophy and also made the team number-1 in Tests.
When asked about the time spent with Dhoni, Wright said that he spent less time with Dhoni but he was very impressed with this player’s intelligence.
He said, “It was clear that Dhoni is not just a gifted cricketer but he is also very clever. He listens very well to everyone. He didn’t say much in the first series with me, but he was looking at things and Were learning. I thought at that time that they had a big future ahead of them. ”
Wright was asked if Dhoni was a born captain? So he said, “I can’t make that decision because I wasn’t there. He only played one series as my coach. What I heard later was that he didn’t have any problem with captaincy even when in the team He was a very experienced and senior player and those senior players respected his captaincy. “
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