Virender Sehwag’s shocking revelation about MS Dhoni

Virender Sehwag has been a big name in Indian cricket during his days. He was considered one of the most impactful batters and match-winners because of his aggressive style of batting. While has been a great impact player for his team and any team would have liked to have him in their playing eleven, the swashbuckling opener has spoken up about a time when he thought of ending his career.

He has recently said that he wanted to take retirement from One Day International cricket during the Australia tour in 2008. This was the time when the then Indian captain MS Dhoni decided to drop Sehwag from the team. India was playing in the Commonwealth Bank tri-series in Australia at the time, the participating teams were the hosts Australia, India, and Sri Lanka. Notably, Sehwag was a part of the playing eleven in only 5 of the 10 matches that India played. In the first 4 games, he was able to put up scores of 6, 33, 11, and 14, which saw him being dropped from the playing eleven.

However, he was later given a chance against Australia later in the tournament, he squandered the chance scoring just 14 runs in the match. Meanwhile, India won their first series down under defeating Australia in the finals of the tournament by a margin of 2-0.

‘Sachin Tendulkar stopped me’: Sehwag

In a recent conversation with Cricbuzz, Sehwag revealed that he thought of announcing his retirement from ODIs after he was dropped. However, it was Sachin Tendulkar who stood by his side and stopped him from taking any rash decision.

“In 2008 when we were in Australia, this question came to my mind. I made a comeback in the Test series and scored a 150. In the ODIs I couldn’t score that much in three-four attempts. So, MS Dhoni dropped me from the playing XI then the thought of quitting ODI cricket came to my mind. I thought I will continue playing only Test cricket,”- said Sehwag on ‘Match Party’, a show by Cricbuzz.

“Sachin Tendulkar stopped me at that time. He said ‘this is a bad phase of your life. Just wait, go back home after this tour, think hard and then decide what to do next’. Luckily, I didn’t announce my retirement at that time,”- he added.