Star India batter Virat Kohli has stated that he was always MS Dhoni's right-hand man as he opened up on how the latter helped with the transition and allowed him to take over the captaincy.
Kohli made his India debut under Dhoni in 2008 and shared the dressing room with him until 2019. During this period, the legendary wicketkeeper passed the leadership baton to Virat.
Speaking on the RCB Podcast Season 2, Kohli said Dhoni took him under his wing and started grooming him for the captaincy role since 2012.
“With me and MS there was never a question of any awkwardness in that whole period. The reality of the situation is MS chose me,” Virat Kohli said.
“He kind of took me under his wings, and since 2012 he kind of groomed me as a guy who is going to take over the captaincy from him. I was his vice-captain. I was always having conversations with him about what we can do in the field. I was always his right-hand man. I was always there understanding the game and I also got confidence because I was playing a lot of match-winning knocks for the team,” he added.
Kohli further said that he was always with the feel of the game and Dhoni observed that very early.
“I was also giving him a lot of input in the field. I was never someone who was just standing there fielding and throwing the ball back. I always used to go to him when the game was tight. I was always with the feel of the game. I was never really only looking at the scoreboard .. oh these many runs and these many runs. I was more into what’s the pitch doing and what’s the conditions are like, what can we do to break the partnership.. all those kind of things. He understood that very early.
“That’s why it was very smooth. I always had and still have a huge respect for him for how he captained the India cricket team and obviously how he performed for so long.
“I never had any kind of ill intentions when it came to MS. I never felt like ‘I should be there’ I always was very respectful of the fact that he has so much trust in me and I can go and talk to him about anything,” he remarked.
