Former Indian skipper MS Dhoni is regarded as one of the greatest captains of all time having won all the three ICC trophies – ODI World Cup (2011), T20 World Cup (2007), and Champions Trophy (2013). As a skipper, MSD took the Indian cricket team to the number 1 position and led India to numerous memorable triumphs.
Recently, as the legendary Indian skipper completed 16 years in the cricket world, the cricket fraternity went down the nostalgic way and flooded the social media with tributes for MS Dhoni.
Recently, while speaking on the Cricket Connected Show on Star Sports, former Indian cricketer Mohammad Kaif went nostalgic and shared his memory of seeing MS Dhoni bat for the first time in the Duleep Trophy in the early 2000s. He revealed:
“The first time I noticed Dhoni, I was the captain of the Central Zone in the Duleep Trophy. And he was playing for East Zone, not as a captain, a wicketkeeper. He had also toured for India A,”
Mohammad Kaif revealed that a friend of his from Lucknow had asked him to watch Dhoni in the domestic circuit as he smashed the ball like no other cricketer all over the park.
He also recalled the fact that all the players who were a part of the Duleep Trophy including Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, and Virender Sehwag but none of them had any idea that Dhoni will take team India to such great heights. He revealed:
“I had a friend in Lucknow who told me ‘Kaif, there is a player. Watch him. He has long hair and I’ve never seen anyone hit sixes as he does. All of us who were playing at that time – I, Zaheer, Harbhajan, Sehwag – none of us thought that he could captain India the way he did, who would lift Indian cricket to such heights,
Both MS Dhoni and Mohammad Kaif have featured together in many games for India and have taken the team to numerous victories. Mohammad Kaif was also a part of the match against Bangladesh in 2004 when MS Dhoni had made his debut on the big stage.
