Star batter Virat Kohli shares a special bond with former captain MS Dhoni, both on and off the field. Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni are two different personalities on the field, one is always aggressive and the other remains calm even under pressure. The 34-year-old spoke about the Jharkhand batsman and said the latter helped him take over the captaincy.
Virat Kohli made his India debut under MS Dhoni in 2008 and shared the dressing room with him for 11 years during his stint with Team India between 2008 and 2019. The legendary wicketkeeper handed over the captaincy to Virat during Australia’s tour in 2014. The Delhi-born cricketer was appointed captain of the Indian Test team in 2014 and became the all-format captain in 2017.
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I Was Always His Right-hand Man – Virat Kohli
While speaking on the RCB Podcast Season 2, the first of the 10 episodes, Virat Kohli stated that there was no awkwardness between him and MS Dhoni while taking the captaincy from the latter. Virat said that Dhoni personally picked him as his successor while he was serving as vice-captain.
“With me and MS, there was never a question of any awkwardness in that whole period because the reality of the situation is that MS chose me and it wasn’t the other way around,” he said in the RCB Podcast Season 2.
“So when you understand as a captain that you already have someone who has been under your wings since he was 23 and vice-captain.”
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“I was always having conversations with him about what we can do on the field. So I was always his right-hand man. I was always understanding the game. We also gained confidence because I was playing a lot of match-winning knocks for the team.”
“So he understood that I understand the game. I was also giving him a lot of input on the field. I was never someone who was just standing there fielding and throwing the ball back.”
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