In recent years, the Indian and Bangladesh cricket teams have provided hard-fought thrillers, to form a contemporary rivalry in world cricket.
The excitement, competitiveness, and buzz around the Indo-Bangladesh encounters have often eclipsed the traditional Indo-Pak rivalry of-late.
However, whenever the two teams have met in the recent decade and a half, it has been in the presence of their talismans, namely, MS Dhoni and his counterpart Mushfiqur Rahim.
Rahim watched Dhoni’s side crumble under pressure during the 2007 ODI World Cup game in Trinidad. While Dhoni took victory from jaws of defeat against Rahim’s side in the high-octane 2016 T20 World Cup game, which was a virtual quarterfinal.
Some of the decisions given against Bangladesh in the 2015 ODI World Cup match at Melbourne, as well as 2018 Asia Cup finals, is still a point of debate in social media.
There have been numerous instances when India and Bangladesh have produced some of the classic cricket matches with Dhoni and Rahim at loggerheads.
Now, Rahim has opened up to having major adulations for the Indian matador. “I’m fond of Dhoni’s captaincy. I believe his name should be there amongst the all-time greatest captains. He has an excellent sixth sense and can effectively make predictions about what’s in store. His cricketing sense is also outstanding. As a captain, Dhoni has a great win percentage as well,” Rahim told Business Standard.
“There’s no major tournament that he hasn’t won. He is a skipper I like very much. Earlier I said that I didn’t have an idol. But now you can call Dhoni as my idol. Captains around the world can look up to him for inspiration,” he added.
Rahim’s short stint as a captain culminated with Bangladesh’s debacle tour of South Africa back in 2017. Meanwhile, Dhoni last captained India back in 2016, during the T20I game against West Indies in Florida.
