“Dhoni did not want Kohli in the team,” Former India selector makes huge claim about MS Dhoni favoring his CSK teammate over Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli was eventually selected and played in the five-match ODI series against Sri Lanka.

“Dhoni did not want Kohli in the team,” Former India selector makes huge claim about MS Dhoni favoring his CSK teammate over Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni (Image via myKhel)

Former India captain MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli share a great bond. Time and again, both have openly praised each other and Kohli also said that Dhoni will always be his captain when the World Cup-winning captain retired. But the bond was not the same always. A claim by former India Chief Selector, Dilip Vengsarkar has indicated that Dhoni did not trust Kohli when the latter was emerging onto the scenes. 

Vengsarkar has shared an anecdote about how Dhoni did not want Virat Kohli on the national team. Instead, the former India captain wanted S Badrinath, Dhoni’s then-Chennai Super Kings teammate. Not just Dhoni but the then-India coach Gary Kirsten was also against selecting Kohli although Vengsarkar insisted on having the youngster. 

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“I and my colleagues decided that we will take the U-23 boys and at that time we had won the U-19 World Cup, Virat Kohli was the U-19 captain and I selected him in the team. He (Kohli) was technically sound and I thought he should be played. We were going to Sri Lanka and I felt that this is the ideal situation that he should be in the team. My four colleagues said ‘As you say Dilip Bhai’.

“However, Gary and Dhoni were saying ‘No, we haven’t seen him and we will continue with the same team’. I told them ‘You haven’t seen him but I have seen and we have to take this boy,” said Vengsarkar back in 2020.  

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Did Virat Kohli justify his selection?

Virat Kohli debut match
Virat Kohli in his debut match (Image via TOI)

It was India’s tour of Sri Lanka for which Kohli was selected. While he did not have a breakthrough series but he did a decent job. Kohli scored 159 runs in the five innings he played including a half-century. India won the series 3-2. 

However, Kohli did not play at his favorite batting position i.e. No.3. The young batter was asked to open the innings and Kohli did a decent job. But as his career grew, Kohli was pushed down the order as he batted at No.4 for quite a while. Eventually, after Sachin Tendulkar retired, Kohli made the No.3 spot his own.

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