MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri
The book by R Sridhar, the former field coach of the Indian cricket team, has created quite a stir as soon as it is published. Lots of incidents related to ex captain MS Dhoni are coming out in this book. Previously, where there was a disclosure about his retirement plan. At the same time, a big truth has come to light about his uneasiness to give up the ODI captaincy and get the ODI captaincy from Virat Kohli. It was revealed in Sridhar’s book ‘Coaching Beyond: My Days with the Indian Cricket Team’ that Virat Kohli was desperate to get the ODI team captaincy in 2016. It is noteworthy that earlier MS Dhoni had shocked everyone by announcing his sudden retirement. of the longer format during the Test series in Australia in 2014-15.
Shocking revelation from Sridhar’s book
Former Indian team outfield manager R Sridhar has revealed in his new book that Virat Kohli was desperate for the ODI captaincy at the time (in 2016). Only then did he receive a special advice from the then coach Ravi Shastri and asked him to respect MS Dhoni’s discretion and wait his turn. Sridhar wrote in the book that as far as the coaching group was concerned, an atmosphere was created where you could look each player in the eye and tell the truth, however bitter. In this, he mentioned an incident from Kohli’s early days when Kohli was the Test team captain, but he still hoped for the captaincy in limited overs.
Shastri gave this important advice
Regarding this, Sridhar wrote in the book that there was a time in 2016 when Virat was eager even for the limited overs captaincy. He said such things that it seemed that he was uneasy about the captaincy. One night, Ravi called him and said, ‘Look Virat, MS has given you the captaincy of the test team. You should respect that. He will also give you the limited overs captaincy, but when the time is right. If you don’t respect it now, tomorrow when you become the captain, your team won’t respect you. After this, Virat accepted this advice and then within a year he too became the captain of the limited overs team.
In this book, R Sridhar described former head coach Ravi Shastri as a brilliant leader and said that he used to speak frankly and did not hesitate. He also said that Shastri had to do the job of informing the players who were out of the team. Earlier in this book by Sridhar there was also a revelation related to the retirement of MS Dhoni. It was stated in it that Dhoni had decided to retire only after the 2019 semi-final loss and only a few people within the team knew about it.