Sachin Tendulkar reveals why he recommended MS Dhoni as future India captain

Sachin Tendulkar recently lifted the lid on recommending MS Dhoni as future India captain back in 2007.

MS Dhoni made his captaincy debut in the inaugural T20 World Cup in South Africa in 2007. He started his journey there and then became the most successful captain for India in history with 3 ICC Trophies.

But it was Sachin Tendulkar who made Dhoni's escalation to the throne smooth. In the 2007 T20 World Cup, Tendulkar along with Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid decided not to play in the tournament to give chances to the youngsters.

And the Indian legend was asked by the BCCI for a suitable captaincy recommendation, where he had glowing remarks on MS Dhoni.

"This was in England when I was offered captaincy. I said we have a very good leader in the team who was still a junior, and he is someone you should look at closely. I have had a lot of conversations with him, more so on the field where I would be fielding at first slip and asked him, what do you think? Though Rahul was the captain but I would ask him and the feedback I received was very balanced, calm, yet very much matured," Tendulkar revealed in an Infosys event.

"Good captaincy is about being a step ahead of opposition. If one is smart enough to do that, like we say, josh se nahi, hosh se khelo (play sensibly instead of getting carried away). It doesn't happen instantly, you won't get 10 wickets in 10 balls. You have to plan it. At the end of the day, the scoreboard matters. And I saw those qualities in him. Hence, I recommended his name," the great man added.

MS Dhoni led India to the T20 World Cup glory in 2007 and then subsequently won the ICC ODI World Cup four years later on home soil. He also won the ICC Champions Trophy in 2013, thus becoming the only captain to win all ICC tournaments.

Dhoni took over the reins after a dismal period of Indian cricket after their shock exit from the first round in the 2007 ICC ODI World Cup. He made the team his own and reached the zenith of all captaincy achievements, especially in the white ball cricket.