After India’s disastrous outing in the West Indies at the 2007 ODI World Cup, the Men in Blue salvaged some pride from their England tour.
Shortly after the long gruelling tour, the Indian team had to take part in the inaugural T20 World Cup in South Africa.
Captain Rahul Dravid, decided to opt-out of the tournament deemed for the ‘younger generation of cricketers’. Also, he persuaded Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar to pull out of the competition.
“Yes, it is true (Rahul Dravid stopping Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly from playing the 2007 T20 World Cup). Rahul Dravid was the captain in England and some players came directly from England to Johannesburg (for the T20 World Cup),” coach Lalchand Rajput told Sportskeeda.
Dravid’s move to pull out of the tournament gave birth to the captaincy legacy of MS Dhoni, who ended up winning the prized title. Also, the likes of Rohit Sharma, Robin Uthappa were the finds of the tournament.
“They said let’s give an opportunity to the youngsters. But after winning the World Cup they must have repented it because Sachin always kept on telling me that I am playing for so many years and I have still not won the World Cup,” the former coach added.
Further, Rajput suggested that Dhoni’s style of captaincy is an amalgamation of Dravid and Ganguly.
“To be very honest Dhoni was very very calm and used to think two steps ahead of the opponent and he was always a thinking captain. He was a mixture of Ganguly and Rahul Dravid.”
“Ganguly used to give players the confidence and he was the one who changed the mentality of the Indian team so I think that carried forward with Dhoni because even he gave opportunities to players and if he saw potential in someone he used to give him ample opportunities,” the 58-year-old said.
“Dhoni will never show any evasive action on the ground and that helped the players in giving their best,” Rajput concluded.
