Legendary Indian captain Sourav Ganguly was the one who laid the foundation of another legend in MS Dhoni by taking an astonishing step of promoting him to No. 3 in the batting order. With Dhoni grabbing the first such opportunity with open arms, his talent was there to be seen by everyone. However, former Indian wicket-keeper batter Saba Karim was the one who gave a lead about Dhoni to Ganguly.
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Ganguly has always iterated that a batter can only be made by promoting him in the batting order. He did the same with former Indian batter Virender Sehwag as well. Ganguly, who himself was not in the best of forms at the time, sacrificed his own batting position for Dhoni in the second ODI of Pakistan’s tour of India 2005 in Visakhapatnam.
Dhoni, who hadn’t batted above No. 7 in his previous four ODI innings, was surprised by Ganguly’s decision when he informed him to pad up after winning the toss and electing to bat first. Dhoni, who became an overnight sensation by scoring a swashbuckling maiden ODI century, claimed earlier this year that the innings gave him 10 more matches in international cricket.
8 Months Before Promoting MS Dhoni To No. 3, Sourav Ganguly Had Received A Lead Regarding CSK Captain
Having first made a name for himself while playing for India A in a triangular series in Kenya in 2004, Dhoni made the most of replacing wicket-keeper batter Dinesh Karthik as he had received a national call-up.
With Dhoni scoring quick runs at No. 3, Karim revealed on Jio Cinema earlier this month that he was highly impressed with Dhoni’s batting. However, Ganguly had not seen the right-handed hard-hitting batter play until then. With the Karim-Ganguly conversation happening eight months before the aforementioned Visakhapatnam ODI in April 2005, the latter took serious cognizance of his former Bengal teammate’s suggestion.
“I went to meet him [Sourav Ganguly] and I told him there is this keeper who should come into the Indian team because he was batting so well and was such a safe keeper. Unfortunately, Sourav hadn’t seen MS [Dhoni] play just before we toured Pakistan [in 2004], and he wasn’t selected for that tour.”
For the unversed, Dhoni was the highest run-scorer in Kenya amassing 362 runs at an average and strike rate of 72.40 and 90.15 respectively including two centuries (against a Misbah-ul-Haq-led Pakistan A) and one half-century.
In one of the matches where Dhoni scored a hundred, India A had lost their first wicket for just eight runs in a 235-run chase. Dhoni then stitched a match-winning second-wicket 169-run partnership with former Indian batter Gautam Gambhir. The Gambhir-Dhoni duo did wonders in that tournament. Even during Dhoni’s other century, both of them had added 207 runs together.
Why Did Sourav Ganguly Promote MS Dhoni To No. 3?
After Dhoni’s international retirement in 2020, Ganguly explained the rationale behind promoting Dhoni. He cited the example of legendary Sachin Tendulkar where he highlighted how he would not have become such a big name by only batting in the middle-order. Ganguly was adamant of the fact that a player can only be made whilst performing on the field and not by sitting in the dressing room.
“He [MS Dhoni] got the opportunity to bat at No.3 in Vizag, scored a superb hundred and whenever he has got a chance to play more overs, he has scored big. [Sachin] Tendulkar wouldn’t have become Tendulkar if he kept batting at No.6 because you get a handful of balls to play,” Ganguly had told Sports Tak.
Despite achieving humongous success at No. 3, Dhoni batted just 16 times in that position. As his career progressed, he slowly shifted down the order. He played a majority of his matches at No. 6 scoring 4,164 runs across 129 innings at an average of 47.32.
