Legendary Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has often come across as a man of few words with his sedate and composed personality. However, there is also a witty side to him which knows how to come up with some off-the-field sledges for the media personnel. One such moment had involved him taking Harbhajan Singh as the subject in order to pull the Australian media’s leg post leading India to title triumph in the Commonwealth Bank Series 2008.
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Having already had a disappointing run with the bat during the preceding Test series of the Australian tour, Dhoni was set to lead the side for a triangular series. It, however, began with India getting thrashed by the hosts during the only T20I contest by 9 wickets.
However, he yet again proved his credibility as a leader by defeating a star-studded Aussie side in the finals of a hard-fought tri-series which followed soon after. Having already led India to the ICC World Twenty20 2007 victory a few months ago, Dhoni had now humbled the reigning ODI world champions in the very format by defeating them twice in a best-of-three finals.
MS Dhoni’s Wisecrack For Australian Media After Winning CB Series 2008
A pumped-up Dhoni, post the series victory, made sure to end the tour with his own inimitable style of dealing with the reporters attending a press conference – about which the cricketing fraternity would learn much more during his successive years as India captain.
With a broad smile on his face, he had remarked that since Harbhajan Singh will be leaving Australia the next day, the Indian team would need a new face to provide the Aussie media with some spicy content for their newspaper and tabloid reports. Post the title winning moment, an animated Harbhajan was seen celebrating the victory in utmost passion and ruthless aggression with camerapersons following him all across the ground.
“Don’t know what will happen to the Aussie media. Bhajji [Harbhajan] is going back tomorrow, so we’ll need someone to replace him. He has been in the front page throughout the summer if you see”.
For those unaware, the former Indian off-spinner had managed to hog the headlines ever since the second Test match in Sydney. He was accused for racially abusing late Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds during the match, a charge which he would later deny. The infamous scandal was named ‘Monkeygate‘, and Harbhajan was handed a three-match ban by the match referee with immediate effect.
He was, however, cleared of the racial abuse charge later during the hearing and was fined 50% of his match fee for usage of abusive language.
Best MS Dhoni Press Conferences Moments
Dhoni would go on to provide his fans with some gems of moments from the post-match press conferences during his captaincy tenure. Perhaps his most famous one had arrived after India were eliminated from ICC World Twenty20 2016, when he had hilariously invited an Australian journalist to sit beside him for a chat after he had inquired him regarding his retirement plans from the limited-overs format.
Again, after India had lost the Test series 0-4 during their tour to Australia in 2011-12, Dhoni was asked to reason out the selection of a host of youngsters in the squad for the CB Tri-Series which followed. A witty Dhoni had replied, “From Kishore Kumar, we have gone to Sean Paul”.
Yet another moment had arrived after India had lost the Test series in England 1-3 in the year 2014. An English reporter asked Dhoni for his views to the question that whether or not his batters should skip the Indian Premier League and focus on their Test batsmanship. Dhoni replied, “Don’t be so jealous of the IPL.”
