Virender Sehwag recalls guidance offered to MS Dhoni in 2007 T20 World Cup vs Pakistan

The MS Dhoni-led Indian cricket team defeated Pakistan in the final of the 2007 T20 World Cup and also lifted the first-ever trophy of the first edition of the T20 World Cup. The team didn't have big names like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, and Sourav Ganguly and consisted of totally young players. Virender Sehwag, who is known for his explosive batting, was a major part of the team and gave the team solid opening starts in many games. 

While the team's first match was washed out, the Indian team faced Pakistan in their second match and while the scores of both the teams were tied, Team India played the first-ever bowl out in the history of T20 cricket. In general, a super over is done in a T20 match to decide the winner if the scores are tied. But in previous times, the decision of the winner was done through a bowl out. 

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While each team had six balls and six different bowlers, they had to hit the stumps and the team which hit the stumps for most of the time emerged to be the winners. While the Indian bowlers hit the stumps most of the time, whereas the Pakistani bowlers missed three in three, India emerged as the winner. 

While it was the part-time bowlers who won the Indian team match in which Virender Sehwag was also one of them who hit the stumps in the bowl out.

Virender Sehwag recently, in an interview with Gaurav Kapur on Breakfast with Champions, revealed the piece of advice he gave to MS Dhoni regarding the bowl out. While all Pakistan's main bowlers like Umar Gul, Yasir Arafat, and Shahid Afridi missed the stumps, Sehwag said that he had only advised Dhoni to give the ball to the spinners and also to bowl with a short run-up. 

'I told MS Dhoni that I’ll be going first': Virender Sehwag 

“So the very first match ended up in a bowl-out. I told MS Dhoni that I’ll be going first. I said I will do it as I was confident of hitting. I said don’t give it to the bowlers. He asked, why so? I said they’ll mess up with their run-up", Virender Sehwag said. 

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"It happened since we all had practiced in the warm-ups. So they got used to the bowl-out. I don’t know of the other teams," Sehwag added.