Former BCCI President Sharad Pawar revealed how it was Sachin Tendulkar who had suggested the name of MS Dhoni as the India captain after Rahul Dravid wanted to give up the leadership, as it was affecting his batting.

Pawar served as the BCCI president for a period of three years from 2005 to 2008 and shared the story of how Tendulkar mentioned Dhoni’s name as India captain.

"I remember India had gone to England in 2007. At that time, Rahul Dravid was the captain. I was there in England then and Dravid came to meet me. He told me how he no longer wanted to lead India. He told me how the captaincy was affecting his batting.

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He told me that he should be relieved from the captaincy. I then asked Sachin Tendulkar to lead the side, but he refused the role," said Pawar.

Pawar then told Tendulkar that if he and Dravid both don’t want to captain India, then who should be given the chance?

"I told Sachin that if both of you and Dravid do not want to lead the side, how will we go about things? Then Sachin told me that we have one more player in the country who could lead the side and his name is none other than MS Dhoni. After that, we gave the leadership to Dhoni," he added.

In 2007, under Dravid's leadership, India was knocked out of the 50-over World Cup in the group stages and the side was subjected to severe criticism. In the same year, Dhoni was named as skipper for the T20 World Cup, as senior players refused to play the new T20 format in international cricket.

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India won the 2007 T20 World Cup in South Africa and Dhoni was then named the ODI captain as well. He became the Test captain in 2008 after Anil Kumble retired and went onto win the 2011 World Cup and 2013 Champions Trophy for India.

India also became the no.1 ranked Test team for the first time under MS Dhoni’s captaincy.

Dhoni has 195 international stumpings, the most by any wicket-keeper. Dhoni played 350 ODIs with his highest score being 183 against Sri Lanka. In December 2014, he announced his retirement from Tests, having played 90 Tests, managing to score 4,876 runs at an average of 38.09.

He also called time on his India career in August 2020, having last played for India in the World Cup 2019.

(ANI inputs)