Legendary India captain and wicketkeeper-batter MS Dhoni recently made his podcast debut, where he spoke on his cricketing journey. Dhoni, who retired from international cricket in August 2020, is only active as a cricketer in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Dhoni is currently playing his 18th IPL season, but his first as an uncapped player after being retained by the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) for Rs 4 crore. CSK exercised a revised rule that allows players who haven’t represented their country in the past five years to be categorised as uncapped.
In a huge first, Dhoni made his podcast debut recently, and the session was moderated by renowned content creator Raj Shamani, who also has a podcast of his own. However, Dhoni’s podcast is only available on the “Dhoni” app.
During the chat, Dhoni was asked to pick “one opening pair, one bowling spell and an all-rounder” that he would like to see playing together, to which, he gave a no nonsense reply.
“See, when you watch them playing, you feel that no one can be better than them. But cricket is a game which keeps on fluctuating. It is very difficult to choose the best opener, but I have seen them playing. See, when Yuvi was hitting 6 sixes, I did not have to see anyone else. Why should I choose one player? There have been players who have won many matches for the team. Yes, earlier.. there was no coverage like this. Earlier also there were many such performances which I do not know, because earlier all these could not be recorded. Today’s generation does not know about them,” Dhoni told Raj Shamani during a podcast.
Dhoni, who is the most successful cricket captain in India’s history, also revealed that he never thought about representing the country at the biggest stage.
“Never thought I would play for the country. I used to live in Ranchi. Earlier it was Bihar, now it is Jharkhand. There is no history of cricket career in our side. When I was in school, I never thought that I would play for India. When we were in school, we used to play with tennis ball and at that time I used to bowl,” he added.
Dhoni further said: “At that time I was very young and skinny. Then I was told to do wicketkeeping… I always used to play cricket against people who were senior to me. There were very few boys of my age who played cricket. So playing cricket with people senior to me was very important for me. Playing with seniors helped me. I did nothing else apart from that. I was very scared of my father. He was always punctual. I am also like my father.”
Dhoni, as captain, led India to three different ICC titles — T20 World Cup (2007), ODI World Cup (2011) and Champions Trophy (2013) — a feat replicated by none.
