New Delhi:
India’s one of the best openers, Virendra Sehwag has credited MS Dhoni’s success in cricket to former captain Sourav Ganguly’s sacrifices.
Sehwag, who retired from international cricket on October 20, 2015, said that Ganguly was one of the few captains who gave away his own batting spot twice for Virendra Sehwag and MS Dhoni.
Ganguly used to open the innings with Sachin Tendulkar but started coming at no. 3 and promoted explosive Virendra Sehwag to open the innings.
He then gave up his no. 3 spot for MS Dhoni and that was the time he shone for team India and scored his career-best 183 not out. Dhoni had made his debut in 2014 when Ganguly was the captain of Indian team.
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“Ganguly at that time decided to give Dhoni a chance at No.3 for three or four matches. There are very few captains who would first give away his own batting spot for Virender Sehwag and then his set spot of No.3 for Dhoni. Had Dada (Ganguly) not done that, Dhoni would not have become such a great player. Ganguly always believed in giving chances to new players," Virender Sehwag said in an interview with India TV.
Sehwag also mentioned Rahul Dravid’s role in making Dhnoi a complete cricketer and a “very good finisher” after replacing Ganguly as Indian team’s captain in 2005.
"During Rahul Dravid's captaincy, Dhoni got the role of a finisher. He got out a couple of times playing a bad shot and he was also reprimanded by Dravid during one instance. But from that instance, he completely changed his approach and became a very good finisher. The kind of partnerships he had with Yuvraj Singh are memorable," Sehwag said.
