Former Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s achievements as the captain of the team cannot be matched. The legendary cricketer took up the gigantic responsibility on his shoulders in 2007, and the rest, as we say, is history. For a fact, there have been 475 international skippers to head their respective sides, but only one of them has won all the three ICC trophies – The ICC Cricket World Cup, World T20, and the ICC Champions Trophy. And it’s none other than MS Dhoni.
However, MS Dhoni’s approach as a leader differs from the likes of Sourav Ganguly and Virat Kohli, who preferred to be aggressive on the 22 yards. The Indian number 7 can be defined by an uber-cool attitude and unbelievable calmness when it comes to leading the team. Even if you are a close follower of the game, we bet, you can hardly find out occasions when Mahendra Singh Dhoni lost his cool.
But, exceptions are a reality and we are here to share an incident where the iconic wicketkeeper-batsman lost his calm over Kuldeep Yadav!
The incident roots back to the time when the Indians were playing Sri Lanka at Indore. Thanks to Rohit Sharma’s trailblazing century of just 35 balls, India registered a respectable total of 260/5.
Sri Lanka got off to a flying start with their batsmen in fine touch. Youngster Kuldeep Yadav, who was inexperienced then, was having a tough time with the ball in hand. In came Dhoni, asking the chinaman to bring the point fielder up. Kuldeep’s refusal to change the field saw a usually patient MS Dhoni, shout at the youngster. Dhoni said,
“Kya main pagal hoon yahan pe, main 300 ODI khela hoon.”
When translated to English, the line stands as ” Am I mad? I have played 300 ODIs.” The rare incident was revealed by Kuldeep Yadav himself on the talk show “What the duck” hosted by Vikram Sathaye.
You can see the video here:
Well, this was one out of the locker. We bet you weren’t aware of this!