Two of India's greatest cricketers, Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni, have shared the dressing room for nearly a decade, sharing mutual admiration and respect for what they achieved on the cricket field during their playing days.

Speaking on how he perceived Dhoni when he first burst onto the international scene during his maiden series in Bangladesh (in December 2004), Sachin said the sound of MS' bat in the games made him realise his potential. "First time I saw him was in Bangladesh. In one of the matches he played, one or two shots at the end, the kind of sound I heard from his bat, I immediately turned towards Sourav (Ganguly), sitting next to me and said, "There is something different when he hits the ball," Sachin Tendulkar revealed on Jio Insider. Sachin further said given the power-hitter that MS Dhoni had, and with the sound his bat used to make while striking the ball, everyone knew it would travel ten yards extra into the stands. Former PCB chairman and diplomat Shaharyar Khan passes away at 89 "The big hitters have this speciality, and when they connect it, you will think it is going to the distance, but it will travel 10 yards more. I saw that quality in his batting," he added.

Why MS never sit with Sachin on the plane?

Often being allotted the seat next to the mighty Sachin Tendulkar on the plane, MS Dhoni never used to sit there, instead asking someone else to swap it with him. "Few players told me, most of the time in flight, his seat would be next to me, but he will switch it with some other players," laughed Sachin. "For few years, he never sat next to me). We started sitting next to each other later. I didn't know that he was so shy, and that's why he used to switch his seats," Sachin revealed.

When Sachin offered BCCI to appoint MS as captain

Following India's shocking early exit from the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies, the BCCI reached out to Sachin to lead the Men in Blue in the white-ball set-up, including in the T20Is, but Sachin declined the offer immediately. Instead, he urged the board to look at an unlikely candidate in MS Dhoni, whom he thought was the right man for the job going ahead. Shedding light on the same, Sachin said, "The BCCI offered me captaincy in 2007, but my body was in terrible shape," Sachin said. "My observation of MS Dhoni was very good. His mind is very stable, he's calm, he's instinctive, and makes the right decisions. I recommended him for the captaincy," the Master Blaster noted. Meanwhile, MS Dhoni, 42, appeared in the IPL 2024 opener between Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bengaluru, a day after relinquishing his CSK captaincy to opener Ruturaj Gaikwad. CSK won the curtain raiser by six wickets.