India’s 2007 ICC World T20 win will stay among the most noteworthy triumphs in the nation’s cricketing history. A youthful and rather unpracticed group drove by Mahendra Singh Dhoni who was captaining India just because won the trophy despite seemingly insurmountable opposition in Johannesburg.
The nonappearance of stalwarts like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid had implied nobody gave the Indian group an opportunity at the occasion in South Africa.
Be that as it may, it was the then ODI skipper Dravid who had persuaded Tendulkar and Ganguly to not play in the opposition and let adolescents have a go at it.
“Yes, it is true (Rahul Dravid asked Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly to not play the 2007 T20 World Cup),” Lalchand Rajput the team manager of the side for the 2007 World T20 told Sportskeeda in an interaction in their Facebook page.
Watch the FB Live :
“Rahul Dravid was the captain in England and some players came directly from England to Johannesburg (for the T20 World Cup) so they said ‘let’s allow the youngsters’. But after winning the World Cup they must have repented it when we won the World Cup,” Rajput added.
“Because Sachin always kept on telling me that I am playing for so many years and I have still not won the World Cup. Ultimately, he won in 2011, but he was dying to win that World Cup and this team won on the first attempt,” he said.
Rajput recalled how the team thrived under the calm leadership of MS Dhoni as he managed to get the best out of the players.
“As a team, in a dressing room, the atmosphere should be very good. You should motivate players, and the players should not feel the pressure. Our theme during the World Cup was ‘tension lene ka nahi, dene ka (Don’t take tension, give tension)’. Dhoni believed in the motto that people will talk about things, but we need to focus on our strengths and don’t have to worry about what others are saying,” he said.
“Indian team never had much match practice of T20I World Cup. We had only played one T20I match, the other team had played more matches. We were not well prepared, but that hunger was there. Certain senior players were looking to make a comeback and cement their place in the team. It was a good mixture of senior and junior players,” he added.
The Zimbabwean group mentor felt Dhoni’s captaincy was a major factor in India’s triumph as he frequently figured out how to outsmart his contrary number.
“He always thought two steps ahead,” Rajput said of Dhoni.
“I felt as a captain he was a mixture Dravid and Ganguly. He used to give his players a lot of confidence just like how Ganguly did and he also put a lot of thought in the game that was similar to Dravid,” Rajput said.
Dhoni proceeded to get one of the best captains in Indian cricket history as he included the 2011 ICC World Cup and 2013 ICC Champions Trophy to his bureau. He additionally drove India to the No 1 situation in ICC rankings.
The success at the 2007 ICC World T20 ends up being an immense lift to Indian cricket that was reeling after the stun early exit in the 2007 ODI World Cup in West Indies.
