Former India captain MS Dhoni shocked the world in 2014 when he quit Test cricket in the middle of the Border-Gavaskar trophy down under. Dhoni, out of the blue, decided to retire from the longest format after a drawn Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground with Virat Kohli taking over the reigns in the middle of the series.
Ravi Shastri, who was the team manager at that time, recalled Dhoni came to meet him after the draw and told him that he wanted to have chat with the players in the dressing room as he thought that the former skipper will address them about the result of the match. The former India head coach said that he was confident that Kohli will be the player to lead the Indian team after Dhoni.
“I knew that the moment MS Dhoni finishes, Virat Kohli is the guy to lead the side. He (MS Dhoni) knew who was the next leader in line,” Shastri told Star Sports. “He was waiting for an opportune time to make the announcement. He knew how much his body could take and he wanted to prolong his white-ball career. When your body tells you it’s enough, it’s enough, there are no second thoughts about that,” he added.
“Well, it came as a surprise. He came to me and said ‘I want to say something to the boys’. I said ‘sure’. I thought he was going to say something about the draw. He comes out. I just saw the faces around the dressing room. Most of the boys were in a state of shock when MS made the announcement. But that’s MS for you,” Shastri added.
"I thought if I can't get the best out of Rohit then I'm a failure as a coach" - @RaviShastriOfc
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Meanwhile, Shastri believes that the sacking can come as a blessing in disguise for Kohli who can focus more on his batting now.
“I think it’s the right way to go (2 captains for white-ball and red-ball cricket). This could be a blessing in disguise for Virat and for Rohit. I don’t think in this era with bubble life one guy can handle all three (captaincy in all three formats). It’s not easy at all,” Shastri said.
“We are both pretty aggressive, we played to win, we realised very quickly that to win we need 20 wickets, deciding to play aggressive and fearless cricket. It meant at times that you would lose games but once you got one across the line it’s infectious.”
