MS Dhoni began his journey as a future legend in Indian cricket when he led the national team to a historic ICC World T20 triumph in 2007. Dhoni’s achievements as a skipper since then have set the benchmark for future captains. The team management’s move to put the wicket-keeper batsman in charge ahead of the inaugural T20 World Cup, however, had left Yuvraj Singh surprised as he was expecting himself to be given the baton.
The Indian cricket team went through a huge shake-up in 2007 when the Rahul Dravid-led side failed to even cross the group stage in the 2007 ODI World Cup. The veterans like Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, etc. decided to skip the World T20, paving way for Dhoni to take up the captaincy.
While Yuvraj went on to play a crucial role as India lifted the trophy by defeating Pakistan in the final, the southpaw did have to put his personal ambitions aside and worked for the common goal of the team under the guidance of Dhoni.
“So, basically, India had lost the 50-over World Cup, right? I mean there was quite a turmoil in Indian cricket and then there was a two-month tour of England and there was also a month tour in between with South Africa and Ireland. And then there was a month of T20 World Cup so there were like four months away from home.
“So probably the seniors thought that they need a break and obviously, nobody took the T20 World Cup seriously. I was expecting to captain India in the T20 World Cup and then it was announced MS Dhoni will be the captain,” Yuvraj told on the 22 Yarns podcast.
The captaincy snub didn’t affect Yuvraj’s relationship with Dhoni and the two have since been seen among the best buddies in Indian cricket. While there’s no doubting that Yuvi himself wanted to lead the team, he also had a clear mindset of backing whosoever was given the responsibility.
“Yes, obviously, whoever becomes captain you got to support that guy whether it was Rahul, whether it was [Sourav] Ganguly, whoever in the future, end of the day you want to be a team man and that’s how I was,” Yuvraj added.
Yuvraj and Dhoni went on to stitch many memorable partnerships in the middle for India. In fact, it was with the Jharkhand-born wicket-keeper batsman at the non-striker’s end that Yuvraj had hit Stuart Broad for 6 sixes in an over in the 2007 World T20.
