MS Dhoni was once livid after he got out following my advice, recalls Mike Hussey
Michael Hussey narrated an incident from his coaching days in CSK when MS Dhoni was visibly upset with the Australian for a brief while after the CSK skipper was dismissed after he took advice from Hussey. The Aussie, however, revealed that Dhoni acknowledged the advice post the game.
Widely seen as a player not-so-suited for the T20 format, Michael Hussey made experts eat humble pie in his very first outing in the Indian Premier League in 2008, where he averaged a remarkable 84 while striking at a rate of 168.00. With time, the southpaw became an integral part of the CSK setup - and even won the orange cap in the 2013 edition - and, along with that, also formed quite a close bond with the franchise’s skipper MS Dhoni.
However, recently speaking on the Lessons Learnt with the Greats podcast, the 45-year-old Australian revealed a never-heard-before story from his CSK days, as a batting coach, where he shed light on the more ‘serious’ face of Dhoni. Hussey narrated an incident prior to Qualifier 1 against SRH in 2018, where he’d passed input to the CSK players about Rashid Khan’s grip whilst bowling a googly. One amongst many players who had taken Hussey’s tip, heading into the game, was Dhoni, but to the Indian’s dismay, he was bowled through the gate by the Afghanistan spinner - via a googly.
Hussey, who was the batting coach of CSK in that particular season, revealed how Dhoni sounded quite livid post the dismissal and said that thereon, he would like to bat in his own way.
“Rashid Khan comes on to bowl, one of the very first balls he (Dhoni) faces, goes for the big cover drive – wrong ‘un, bowled through the gate. And I’m thinking ‘Uh, gosh. Okay, no worries.’ And MS walks straight off the field, and I am sitting in the dugout and he walks straight up to me and says ‘I’ll bat my own way, thanks,’ and sits back down,” Hussey said in the podcast, reported Indian Express.
Further recalling the incident, the legendary Australian joked how he’d thought his coaching career was done and dusted but revealed that eventually, after the game, himself and Dhoni made up and had a chat. Post the match, Dhoni, according to Hussey, admitted that it was his own fault and stated that he needed more practice to make better use of the Aussie’s advice.
“As a coach, I thought my days are over forever! But, to MS’s credit, after the game, he was absolutely fantastic. He came up and spoke to me and we had a good chat. He said that the information was correct, but for him, he needed time to go away and process it and practise it.”
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