Was blown away by MS Dhoni’s relaxedness, reveals Simon Taufel

During his long 12-year-long international umpiring career, probably no single person ever to officiate the game has had a bigger fanbase than Simon Taufel. For his errorless umpiring and the ever-present smile on his face, Taufel became the face of umpiring in the post-David Shepherd era. His understanding of the game helped many young and budding umpires later and he also remained one of the finest eloquent speakers regarding the sport and sportsmen. Revealing his time as an umpire in Indian matches, Taufel talked about the impression that Dhoni left on him early in the latter’s captaincy career.

"MS Dhoni, I find him amazing. He's got one of the best cricket brains I've ever come across - him [MS Dhoni], Darren Lehmann and Shane Warne would be the top three cricket brains that I've been fortunate to come across. MS Dhoni is so calm - he's so relaxed - but he's also got a sense of humour that most people wouldn't get to see,” Taufel told Gaurav Kapur on 22 yarns cricket podcast.

"I remember sitting down in a change room with him. We'd just come off a Test match in Cape Town. Sreesanth had bowled in that previous game, [there were] over-rate challenges because Sree takes a long time to bowl his overs, and we'd sat down in these leather chairs in the umpires' room in Durban."

With Taufel wanting to explain the repercussions that Dhoni might have to face if the overrated thing goofed up once again, the then Indian skipper was actually relaxed and came up with a humorous reply. It was the first of many times that Taufel saw the former Indian skipper’s other side and he remembered that quite vividly.

"We're just having an informal chat, and MS is looking at these black leather chairs in the umpires' room, and he says, 'these chairs are okay, they're pretty good, and I was thinking, how can I get a couple of these, I wouldn't mind buying some of these and taking them home'. I'm thinking, I'm trying to have a serious discussion with you about over rates and you're worried about these leather chairs.

"And I said, 'MS, you've now been done for over rates in Cape Town, and if you've got the same problems here in Durban, we're talking about suspension territory.' He's almost rubbed his hands together, and , 'suspension? I wouldn't mind a game off, because I'm playing a lot of cricket at the moment', and it just blew me away. I thought, this is something different that I haven't seen before. But that's the sense of humour and the relaxed nature of the character and you develop good relationships [with such people],” the Aussie added.