Legendary spinner Mutttiah Muralitharan has shared Chennai Super Kings‘ dressing room with captain MS Dhoni for three years. In a recent conversation with YouTuber Ranveer Allahbadia on his show named The Ranveer Show, Muralitharan called Dhoni a “personal person” whose room is open for everyone.
Advertisement
Muralitharan highlighted how one, especially youngsters, can enter Dhoni’s room anytime. If truth be told, the former Sri Lankan champion player is not the only former CSK player to have let out a secret with respect to Dhoni’s room. Even former Australia captain George Bailey had once revealed how Dhoni used to smoke hookah with youngsters in his room.
Muttiah Muralitharan Discloses How Indian Players Used To Play Video Games In MS Dhoni’s Room
Having first played international cricket more than a decade before Dhoni’s India debut, it is needless to say that Muralitharan was quite senior to Dhoni. The 51-year old further addressed how the latter never faced any issue in captaining him due to his respect towards him which was bereft of any ego clash.
Lauding Dhoni’s clarity, Muralitharan sounded keenly impressed with his ability to listen to everyone’s point of view in spite of eventually making his own decision. In addition to speaking on Dhoni’s leadership style, Muralitharan also threw light on an off-the-field aspect about Dhoni wherein he allows players entry into his room for bonding sessions.
“[MS] Dhoni’s room is open for everyone. Anyone can walk in and as Indian players are very close to him, they play video games together and everything like that,” Muralitharan said on The Ranveer Show.
It is to be noted that even Dhoni’s wife Sakshi Dhoni had once revealed how her husband loves playing games like PUBG (now BGMI) and Call of Duty to divert his mind from the sport. Most recently, Dhoni was seen playing Candy Crush whilst on a flight before receiving chocolates from the Air Hostess.
Before Muttiah Muralitharan, George Bailey Had Revealed MS Dhoni’s Affinity For Hookah In His Room
In a video uploaded by cricket.com.au in September 2018, Bailey had reflected on how Dhoni was the one who never used to take pressure on a cricket ground. Although he hadn’t talked about Dhoni’s likeness for video games, he had revealed an interesting habit which was also aimed at comforting Super Kings’ youngsters.
“He [MS Dhoni] likes smoking a bit of the sheesha or the hookah. So, he quite often would set that up in his room, and it was very much an open-door policy. You would go in and quite often find a lot of younger players there. For India or a lot of other cricket teams, it can be hierarchical, but he certainly broke that down.”
Bailey, who was part of the franchise between 2009-2010, had played only four matches across a couple of seasons scoring 63 runs at a strike rate of 95.45. Six years after playing for Chennai, Bailey was part of Dhoni-led Rising Pune Supergiant in what ended up being his last IPL season.
As far as international cricket is concerned, the current Australian chief selector played against Dhoni 18 times across formats. While Australia won nine of those matches, India had ended up on the winning side seven times.
