Virender Sehwag denies falling out with MS Dhoni during Greg Chappell era
Virender Sehwag has denied having a fall out with MS Dhoni during the period when India was being coached by Greg Chappell, IBNLive reports. The 37-year-old also claimed that he never held an interest in becoming captain of the national team.
The two-year reign of Greg Chappell is widely regarded as a ‘black period’ in Indian cricket with rumours of team disharmony and bust-ups doing the rounds on a consistent basis. That period also saw then skipper Sourav Ganguly being stripped of his captaincy and also dropped from the team with Rahul Dravid handed the reigns.
After the disastrous 2007 World Cup campaign where India were knocked out in the group stages itself resulting in Dravid stepping down from his role as skipper, reports had emerged that Sehwag was interested in taking over the captaincy but the selectors instead handed the role to Dhoni in the limited-overs formats.
Chappell had later suggested that Sehwag had an altercation with Dhoni regarding the matter, but Sehwag refuted the claims claiming that he was never interested in becoming captain.
"I don't think any such thing happened. It was all media speculations that Sehwag and Dhoni are at loggerheads. We stay in a hotel together and play matches, I don't think such things occurred. Had it been so, I would have been dropped much earlier,” Sehwag said. “You can ask Dhoni about this. We played the World Cup together in 2007. To say that I wanted to become the captain is entirely incorrect. When Dhoni became captain and I played under him, we won the T20 World Cup."
"When selections were made for Tests, I clearly told the chief selector, you can check it out with K Srikkanth, that Sehwag said, he had no interest in becoming captain, nor was he interested in becoming vice-captain. I told him you can pick up anybody as vice-captain. You can check it out with Dhoni. I had no interest in becoming the captain," he added.
When further probed on his statements during a press conference on July 6, 2012, in which he had seemed to downplay Dhoni's role in the 2011 World Cup triumph, Sehwag stuck to his comments and clarified what he meant.
"Ask anybody sitting here in the audience whether my statement was correct or not. My statement was not wrong, my statement was incorrectly portrayed or projected. I was not making a jibe at Dhoni. What I said was: do not give the entire credit to the captain, give credit to the team too," he said.
"I made 175 runs in the first match, and Dhoni made 92 runs in the last match. In between, I performed well in one or two matches, and Dhoni couldn't perform well in any. Gautam Gambhir made runs and Yuvraj Singh won Man of the Series. And if tomorrow somebody says, we won the World Cup because of Yuvraj, will anybody agree?"
Sehwag wants Dhoni to continue as skipper
Amidst all the criticism levied at Dhoni following the limited-overs series loss against South Africa, Sehwag offered his support to the 34-year-old as he feels Dhoni is being made a scapegoat unfairly.
"If Team India loses today, questions are raised against Virat Kohli or somebody else, or will you also blame the captain? To say that the captain makes the team lose or win, is not correct. I don't think it's correct to blame the captain. He at least tries to keep all together so that the team plays well, plays positive cricket and wins the match for the country, and not think about only winning and earning a name for himself,” Sehwag said.
"We lost because of the team, and not because of the captain or Dhoni because neither our batting nor bowling was up to the mark. For how long will Dhoni alone win the match for us?"
Sehwag went on claim that Dhoni was India’s best skipper in history and added that India would have a tough task replacing him, especially as a player.
“No doubt, if you go through records, Dhoni is India's beCutst captain to date. Beating Sourav Ganguly, he won the Tests, ODIs and T20s, won both the World Cups. He should continue as captain till the next World Cup. If he does so, he can leave behind a good World Cup team,” Sehwag said.
“And if he retires... you can imagine, even now when Dhoni is there, people have to think about who should bat at 5th, 6th and 7th position. If Dhoni is not there, the 5th, 6th and 7th slots will become absolutely free and you cannot expect somebody to finish the match properly," he added.