Ganguly's sacrifice made Dhoni a legend, says Virender Sehwag

New Delhi: The sacrifice of former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly was the major reason behind MS Dhoni becoming a great player. This is what former Indian opener Virender Sehwag said in an interview.

He said if Ganguly would have not sent Mahi to bat up in the order in his place, he would not have become the batsman he is today.

“We were experimenting with the batting order at that time. We decided that if we get a good opening partnership then Sourav Ganguly would come at No.3 but if we had a bad opening stand then we would send pinch hitters like Irfan Pathan or Dhoni to accelerate the scoring rate,” said Sehwag in an interview to a leading news channel.

Patting Dada's back, Viru said that his decision was the turning point of career of Dhoni as a batsman as very few captains take such decisions of promoting any batsmen to his place.

“Ganguly at that time decided to give Dhoni a chance at No.3 for three or four matches. There are very few captains who would first give away his own batting spot for Virender Sehwag and then his set spot of No.3 for Dhoni. Had Dada (Ganguly) not done that, Dhoni would not have become such a great player. Ganguly always believed in giving chances to new players,” Sehwag said.

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Praising Rahul Dravid, Viru said former played Dada in making the wicketkeeper batsman better player. He revealed that MSD was once rebuked by Dravid for gifting his wicket on a bad shot.

“During Rahul Dravid’s captaincy, Dhoni got the role of a finisher. He got out a couple of times playing a bad shot and he was also reprimanded by Dravid during one instance. But from that instance, he completely changed his approach and became a very good finisher. The kind of partnerships he had with Yuvraj Singh are memorable,” Sehwag said.