‘Calm, yet very much matured’ – Sachin Tendulkar reveals why the former Indian cricketer was elected as captain

Former Indian opener Sachin Tendulkar has disclosed the reason for his 2007 captaincy recommendation of MS Dhoni. In the first 20-20 World Cup that year, Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, and Rahul Dravid agreed to give young players an opportunity, and the Indian Cricket Board consulted these experts about their choice of captain.

Dhoni led India to victory in the 20-20 World Cup in its first competition, which was held in 2007 in South Africa. He later led India to victory in the ODI World Cup in 2011. Dhoni became the first and remains the only skipper to date to have won all three major trophies when India won the Champions Trophy in England in 2013.

Good captaincy is about being a step ahead of opposition: Sachin Tendulkar

“This was in England when I was offered captaincy. I said we have a very good leader in the team who was still a junior, and he is someone you should look at closely. I have had a lot of conversations with him, more so on the field where I would be fielding at first slip and asked him, what do you think? Though Rahul was the captain but I would ask him and the feedback I received was very balanced, calm, yet very much matured,” Tendulkar said in an Infosys event.

“Good captaincy is about being a step ahead of opposition. If one is smart enough to do that, like we say, josh se nahi, hosh se khelo (play sensibly). It doesn’t happen instantly, you won’t get 10 wickets in 10 balls. You have to plan it. At the end of the day, the scoreboard matters. And I saw those qualities in him. Hence, I recommended his name,” Tendulkar further added.

In 2008, when Dhoni was appointed as Test captain, the Indian team’s senior cricketers included Tendulkar, Dravid, VVS Laxman, Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, and Zaheer Khan. He won lots of Test maces under his leadership. Currently, he plays for the Chennai franchise in the Indian T20 League.