Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Chennai Super Kings (CSK) skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni revealed team’s meeting before the final against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) surprisingly lasted for just five seconds.
In fact, it is a well-known fact that Dhoni is not a big fan of long team meetings.
The 36-year-old Dhoni added every player in the team knew his respective role before hitting the ground.
Furthermore, Dhoni is not someone who will ask a player to go beyond his limits in the crucial matches. Thus, Dhoni is always known to get the best out of his players.
The Jharkhand-based wicketkeeper-batsman knows the strengths and weaknesses of his players and has been working on accordingly to yield the desired results.
Dhoni gave credit to the relaxed atmosphere in the CSK camp for their repeated success.
“I think at that point of time, we were quite relaxed about how we’d conducted ourselves throughout the tournament. And everybody’s role and responsibilities were very clear. So, you need to address something if it really needs to be addressed,” TOI quoted Dhoni as saying.
Moreover, Dhoni gave credit to the players of the team. The Chennai captain went on to add that they know their roles and have the experience under their belt. Dhoni added that there were not many team’s meeting.
“You know, there’s no point, just because if there is a captain and a coach of the team, you’ve to say something,” Dhoni said at an event on Monday (June 11). “The team meeting that we had, lasted hardly five seconds. (Stephen) Fleming was like: ‘Go, get it, boys.’ And it got over,” Dhoni asserted.
“I always have felt that this was one of the secrets why CSK keep doing that (winning the IPL). We don’t have a long list of meetings. We don’t have too many meetings because we’ve played so long each with other, against each other, you know the conditions so well, you exactly know how you need to operate. And there’s no rocket science,” Dhoni maintained.
In fact, Dhoni revealed that he doesn’t attend the batsmen meeting. Dhoni added that there is no justification of having fewer team meetings.
MS went on to add that the coaching staff is not answerable to the owners.
“Yes, we have the bowlers’ meetings, the batters’ meeting, and I don’t become a part of the batters’ meeting. A lot of times, people do it because they need to tick a box. And in CSK, there’s no justification that happens… you know that the bowling coach doesn’t need to justify to the owners,” Dhoni added.
Meanwhile, Dhoni revealed that they had a bowler’s meeting before the match against Kings XI Punjab (KXIO) in which Chris Gayle thrashed CSK bowlers.
Thus, Dhoni believes it in keeping it simple off the field as well as on it. He added they don’t do team meeting just for the sake of it.
“We had a bowler’s meeting you know before Gayle hit that century (against CSK). A lot of times, it happens that you do it for the sake of doing it. You know you say before the finals, ‘Oh we did this, we did that.’ That’s not in our case. We try to keep it as simple as possible. What’s important as a coaching staff, or as a captain, you need to give advice to a player according to what they can achieve. All of a sudden, you can’t tell somebody, ‘Ok, you need to bowl outside off-stump yorkers,’ and that guy has never done that. So you’ve to tell that guy according to what his strength is and he’s to improve his weak areas. That’s what is brilliant about us,” Dhoni concluded.