The secret behind the jersey numbers of Dhoni, Virat, Rohit revealed

The current Indian team has some players like skipper MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and others who wear particular numbers due to some interesting reasons. Player numbering was first used in the World Cup in 1999, where the captains wore the number 1 jersey and the rest of the squad was numbered between 2 and 15. An exception was that South African captain Hansie Cronje retained his usual number 5 with opener Gary Kirsten wearing the number 1 which he had also done previously.

The 1995–96 World Series Cup in Australia saw the first use of shirt numbers in international cricket, with most players assigned their number and some players getting to choose their number, most notably Shane Warne wearing 23 as it was his number when he played junior Aussie Rules for St Kilda Football Club. Other countries soon adopted the practice, although players would typically have different numbers for each tournament, and it was several years later that players would consistently wear the same number year-round. Some of the famous players such as Ricky Ponting always wore number 14, while Sachin Tendulkar wore number 10.

MS Dhoni was a goalkeeper before he became India’s most successful captain. His jersey number, 7, is also inspired from his favourite football team, Manchester United, and has been worn by the club’s talismanic figures from George Best through Eric Cantona down to Cristiano Ronaldo. Though, the main reason for this number is his birthday that falls on 7th of July. MS had consulted an astrologer and found the number 7 to be a neutral number as it doesn’t have a very positive side or a negative side.

Virat Kohli’s father died on 18th December 2006 when he was 18 years old. Since then his jersey number is 18. It was his father Prem Kohli, who sent him for cricket coaching. It was his dream that his son will play for India, but he never got to see Virat play for team India. The number 18 has been with Virat since his India U-19 days and he has continued with it.

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Yuvraj Singh wears the number 12 because of his birthday which is on the 12th of the 12th month, December. Another interesting thing is that he was born in sector 12 of Chandigarh, the capital city of the northern Indian states of Punjab and Haryana.

Rohit Sharma’s lucky number as suggested by someone is 9. But he didn’t want a single digit number. His mother picked the number 45 for him when he was playing for India U-19 in a World Cup. Ajinkya Rahane considers his lucky number as 9 as he chose the number 27 (2+7 +9 hence 2 and 7).

Ravindra Jadeja’s lucky number is 12. He wore it for his IPL team Chennai Super Kings but for the Indian team, he wears 8 because Yuvraj Singh currently holds the number 12 jersey. The other reason is that number 8 is the grand total of his date of birth 6/12/1988 (6+12+1+9+8+8= 44, 4+4 + 8).

Shikhar Dhawan has kept the number 25 considering it a family number since his wife’s and daughter’s birthdays are one 22 and 25th. Young India all-rounder Hardik Pandya has kept the number 228 since this happens to be his highest score in an Under-16 tournament conducted by the BCCI. Hardik was leading Baroda U-16 who were reeling at 23-4, chasing 350-plus against Mumbai. He went all out to score 228 in that match and helped Baroda win on the basis of first innings lead.

India’s two off-spinners have also picked their respective jersey numbers due to specific reasons. Harbhajan Singh’s birthday is on the 3rd of July hence, he has picked the number 3. R Ashwin’s jersey number is 99. His favourite number is 9 and his roll number was the same digit in his school days.