Mumbai: Former BCCI President Sharad Pawar on Sunday revealed how India’s batting legend Sachin Tendulkar recommended Mahendra Singh Dhoni's name for captain of Indian cricket team back in 2007. While addressing a public meeting on Sunday, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Chief, Sharad Pawar also revealed how Rahul Dravid wanted to leave from his role in 2007 and a new player had to be found as a captain of the national team.

Pawar who served as President of BCCI during 2005 to 2008 said, "I remember India had gone to England in 2007. At that time, Rahul Dravid was the captain. I was there in England then and Dravid came to meet me. He told me how he no longer wanted to lead India. He told me how the captaincy was affecting his batting. He told me that he should be relieved from the captaincy. I then asked Sachin Tendulkar to lead the side, but he refused the role," Pawar said.

"I told Sachin that if both of you and Dravid do not want to lead the side, how will we go about things? Then Sachin told me that we have one more player in the country who could lead the side and his name is none other than MS Dhoni. After that, we gave the leadership to Dhoni," he added.

MS Dhoni became the captain for the first time at the inaugural edition of the T20 World Cup in 2007. From there, he never looked back as he led India to win the T20 World Cup as well as ICC World Cup in 2011.

Dhoni played as a captain in 200 ODIs out of total 350 matches. He also led India in 60 Tests and 72 T20Is. Dhoni retired from 50-over format in 2014. The Thala as he is fondly known as gave up limited-overs captaincy in 2017 while he announced his retirement from international cricket on August 15, last year.