New Delhi : Former India fast bowling legend Javagal Srinath recalled first time he met with MS Dhoni. It was right after the time that Srinath had announced his retirement from the sport back in 2003. Dhoni was part of the India A team that was scheduled to play a tri-series against Pakistan and Kenya. In a recent interaction, Srinath recalled how Dhoni led the team to win in every game, and smashed bowlers all around the park.
“My first meeting with Dhoni was in 2003 post my career in Kenya. There was a triangular series between Kenya, India and Pakistan; in all the three league games all the way to the finals Dhoni won it single handedly,” Srinath told Ravichandran Ashwin on his chat show DRS with Ash.
”At the end of it, the way he disdainfully played the spinners and fast bowlers as if he was playing school cricket,” the former fast bowler further added.
Speaking on Dhoni’s understanding of the game, Srinath described him as a ‘yogi’.
“MS Dhoni is a yogi in cricket. The way he has understood the game, his detachment to results. The way he speaks and conducts himself and on every victory, he holds the cup, the most prized cups, he hands it to someone else and walks away,” Srinath said.
”When he looks into all these things, when things are not going well on the pitch and the team is struggling, his composure and body language as if nothing has happened, he can only be a yogi to be such a wonderful cricketer,” he further added.
Dhoni, who announced his international retirement last month, will return to play for CSK in the upcoming edition of Indian Premier League which kicks off from September 19th.
Former India batsman Gautam Gambhir feels the 2020 edition of the IPL will be a wonderful opportunity for MS Dhoni to bat up the order, most likely at No. 3. The Chennai Super Kings batsman has mostly batted either at No. 5 or 6 for the most part of his India and CSK career. However, each time Dhoni has batted higher, he has succeeded more often than not and Gambhir feels the time is right for the franchise to try and bat Dhoni higher.
“It will be a good opportunity for MS Dhoni to come and bat at No. 3. And he has been away from the game for the last one year, so he would end up getting a lot more balls to face and then he can actually play the anchor innings as well which he has been doing for India for the last couple of years,” Gambhir said on the Cricket Connected Show on Star Sports.
A glance at Dhoni’s India numbers at different positions provide a picture of how useful he can be when batting higher. Dhoni has batted 16 times at No. 3 and averaged 82.75 with 993 runs at the position. At No. 4, Dhoni has played 30 innings, averaging 56.58 and scoring 1358 runs. At No. 5, Dhoni averages 50.30 having tallied 3169 runs, while at No. 6, Dhoni has batted the most and scored 4164 runs from 129 innings.
And this year around, with CSK’s all-time No. 3 Suresh Raina not playing, the position becomes all the more crucial and Gambhir reckons who better than Dhoni to fill that void.
“MS Dhoni at No. 3 and then they have got depth with Kedar Jadhav, Dwayne Bravo, Sam Curran, all those guys they can come in. So, I think it is going to be a great opportunity for someone like MS Dhoni and I am sure he is going to relish that,” he said. “Also, Suresh Raina not being there, you want to have some experienced player batting at No. 3, so it could be MS Dhoni now.”
