Last Updated:
MS Dhoni talks about his bond with Virat Kohli, praising his dedication and their honest conversations, highlighting their journey from teammates to friends.
MS Dhoni (L) and Virat Kohli. (Sportzpics Photo)
MS Dhoni has explained his entire relationship with former teammate and India captaincy successor, Virat Kohli, right from the latter’s entry into the team to their journey into an ‘amazing companionship’. Dhoni said that Kohli was always hungry to contribute to the team and never stopped working on becoming better. Then, their ‘honest’ chats about his game helped them become friends despite the hierarchy differences.
Dhoni was speaking in an interview with JioHotstar, a clip of which was released on Monday. He was asked about the time when Kohli quit Test captaincy and later said that Dhoni was the only one who messaged him. But Dhoni refused to reveal the text, saying that he has worked hard to build a relationship with seniors and juniors of various teams where whatever their chats is kept between them.
“Between me and Virat, you know, right from the start, he was someone who wanted to contribute, he was someone who was never happy with a 40 or 60, he wanted a hundred, he wanted to be not-out at the end and the hunger was there from the start,” Dhoni added in the interview. “The way he improved his batting, and his will to perform and keep performing, was what kept him going. He raised his fitness levels, and was always there on the field. He has always been like that.”
“He would come and talk, ‘What I could have done now… this chase, this point of time I got out, I could have done something different’. We had a lot of conversations and that really opened us up. And [from my side] it was just honest opinions, ‘Maybe you could have done this, delay [taking on the bowlers] by another over’ or ‘it was a risk you had to take at that point’. Just putting in my points and that’s how the relationship grew. It was more like a captain and a newcomer at that point in time, where once you interact you become friends,” Dhoni said.
The duo enjoyed a series of battles over the years leading Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). Dhoni said that now that they have both stepped down, they get more time to chat before the toss at IPL matches.
“I still feel we have that line in the middle about the senior and the junior but we are still friends,” Dhoni said. “We have an amazing, you can say, companionship now that both of us are not the captain, so we can have time between us before the toss. [Earlier,] before the toss you had to get ready and go but now we don’t have to, we can just stand and talk,” he concluded.
CSK and RCB have both started their IPL 2025 campaigns with wins. They’ll now take on each other on Friday (March 28) at Chepauk.
