Chennai Super Kings Skipper MS Dhoni revealed the unheard stories of his early days as a Captian for the four-time champions before their clash against Rajasthan Royals. The 41-year-old became the first ever player in the history of the league to captain a franchise for the 200th time in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
MS Dhoni captained CSK for the 200th time in front of their home crowd in Chepauk and was felicitated by the Chennai Super Kings ahead of the game. Speaking on Star Sports, MS Dhoni recalled the memorable moments of his debut season as a CSK Skipper.
“There is always a curiosity to know how a franchise operates. It is a completely new environment. It was also the first time that you were going to share the dressing room with foreign players. And you did not know how they were,” MS Dhoni said.
MS Dhoni established himself as a Captain during the 2007 T20 World Cup, Where he lead the young Indian team to win the first edition of the T20 World Cup.
Spoke about sharing a dressing room with the renowned overseas players for the first time, Dhoni cited the example of legendary Australian Opener Matthew Hayden as he thought that Australian Southpaw would come in and start abusing straight away, but to his surprise, Hayden initiated the team meetings for the team in 2008.
“Take Matthew Hayden for example, we always thought that he would come and start abusing left right, and center. But it was very interesting that before our first match against Kings XI Punjab, Matthew Hayden took the initiative in the team meeting while discussing strategy,” he added.
MS Dhoni has been captaining the Chennai franchise since the inaugural edition (2008) and led the team to become the second most successful franchise winning 4 IPL titles next to Mumbai Indians, who have bagged 5 IPL titles. Under Dhoni, CSK also reached the IPL final, a record 9 times.
That Was The Kind Of Approach He Had – MS Dhoni On Matthew Hayden’s Batting Exploits
MS Dhoni revealed an interesting strategy by Matthew Hayden in the team meeting to take on fellow countrymate Brett Lee in their encounter against Punjab Kings (Kings XI Punjab) to take on him in the initial stage of the innings which he replicated during the match Punjab.
“The first thing he said was that he would take Brett Lee on. I did not understand a lot at the time and asked what did he mean. Hayden said that I would walk down the track and meet Brett Lee halfway. On the next day, he repeated the exact thing in the first or second ball of the game. That was the kind of approach he had. So it was very interesting,” MS Dhoni revealed.
On the 200th match, MS Dhoni played well to pull back the team and remained unbeaten on 32 off just 17 balls. With 21 runs to chase in the final over, MS Dhoni looked at his absolute best to score back-to-back sixes, to give them a chance, before Sandeep Sharma nailed the yorkers in the final three balls to help Rajasthan Royals to register their third victory from four games.