Former cricketer Sunil Gavaskar, who was part of the side that won the 1983 World Cup, revealed that he told Mahendra Singh Dhoni during the 2011 IPL that in his final moments, he would like to watch the captain’s winning six that secured India its second world title.
Days after Dhoni announced he is retiring from international cricket, Gavaskar recalled his interaction with the former captain in the 2011 edition of the IPL soon after India’s triumph at the World Cup.
“… Chennai Super Kings (CSK) were playing their first match and I was at the ground. I met MSD and said, ‘look, in this world if I’ve got a couple of minutes left, I’m gonna ask someone to put that shot on because I’d love to see that shot and say goodbye to this world’. Because that would be a fantastic way, I’d go with a smile on my face. That’s exactly what I had said to MSD and he was, of course, pretty modest about it. He smiled and didn’t say anything,” said Gavaskar.
Dhoni’s six off Nuwan Kulasekara in the final against Sri Lanka helped seal India’s victory by six wickets, 28 years after winning its maiden World Cup title. Dhoni, who scored an unbeaten 91, was declared the Man of the Match.
Gavaskar also went on to compare Dhoni with the 1983 World Cup-winning captain Kapil Dev, calling them “very similar”.
“Both (Dhoni and Kapil) were very, very similar. Both had similar approaches to the game. They loved playing the game. Both of them loved being in the center of action and they wanted to achieve great things for their teams,” he said.
“… I think he (Dhoni) will be very much a contender (for captaining all-time India XI). If you look at captaincy in one-day cricket for India, there would just be two guys who would come in the frame as far being captains, one is M.S. Dhoni and one is Kapil Dev.
“… they have won, the others might have had very good performances, won bilateral series, but when it comes to winning World Cups, I think M.S. Dhoni has just a little edge over Kapil because he has not just won the 50-over World Cup but also the T20 World Cup. So I think he would be right up there,” Gavaskar said.
Besides the 2011 world title, the ex-captain also led India to win the 2007 T20 World Cup and the 2013 Champions Trophy, making him the only captain to win all three ICC trophies.
Dhoni is one of India’s most successful captains and is regarded as one of the greatest finishers in world cricket.