Harbhajan Singh recalled historical moments from India's victorious campaign in the 2007 T20 World Cup on the 15th anniversary of the win. It was the inaugural edition of the T20 World Cup and the Men in Blue were captained by MS Dhoni.
This was Dhoni's first-time captaining India anywhere leave aside in such a big tournament. But he showed great captaincy and leadership acumen as he took some terrific decisions which helped India win the tournament in the end, defeating Pakistan in the final.
Harbhajan Singh recalled the big semi-final match against Australia. India was defending a big total of 188/5 but Matthew Hayden (62 in 47 balls) played well and was right on the chase.
Australia needed only 30 runs from the last three overs and that's where the fate of the match changed.
MS Dhoni had a difficult choice to make as his third seamer Joginder Sharma had gone for 31 runs in his 2 overs. That's when Harbhajan put his hand up and asked his skipper for the ball.
"I told Dhoni 'give me the ball'. Australia still needed 30 runs in 3 overs. I bowled that over and got Michael Clarke out and helped us," Harbhajan said on Star Sports.
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Harbhajan Singh gave only 3 runs in that over which put Australia under a lot of pressure. India, in the end, won that match by 15 runs to advance to the final.
"It did not feel that MS Dhoni was our skipper until he lifted the trophy. It was so because everyone was contributing their suggestions as to what should be done during a certain stage in a game. He was very open to it and would let us go ahead with whatever we thought was best," added Harbhajan.
He also recalled the strategy during the iconic bowl-out that took place to decide the winner of the Group D clash between India and Pakistan, which ended in a tie with both teams scoring 141 runs each.
"The run-ups of players involved in bowl-out were of three to four steps. It was so because they could have lost their balance after running from a great distance," he said.
Even wicketkeeper-batter Dinesh Karthik recalled his initial impressions of MS Dhoni.
"He was en route to becoming captain back then. He was the Vice Captain during the 2007 ODI World Cup and series against England and various other places. From day 1, he had his own ways of doing things. There was not really much difference between him as a captain and as a player," said Karthik.
In the final, India elected to bat first after winning the toss. They scored 157/5 in their 20 overs and in the end, Pakistan was chased out for 152.
