MS Dhoni talks about CSK’s team meetings

When you have MS Dhoni as the captain, you know that he is going to do things in the most relaxed manner as possible.

CSK and Dhoni get along well, as the CSK team management understands Dhoni’s way of functioning and gives him the space to operate in the manner that he wishes to.

Dhoni has always been a master of toning down pressure and that is exactly what he did before the big IPL final.

While, sport movies and biopics make us believe that it is absolutely necessary to come up with adrenaline pumping speeches, in real life, MS Dhoni feels that it is necessary to treat a big day like any other normal day, so as to calm the nerves.

Thus, CSK’s team meeting before the IPL final lasted just 5 seconds.

“I think at that point of time, we were quite relaxed about how we’d conducted ourselves throughout the tournament. And everybody’s role and responsibilities were very clear. So, you need to address something if it really needs to be addressed. You know, there’s no point, just because if there’s a captain and a coach of the team, you’ve to say something,” Dhoni said as quoted by Cricbuzz.

“The team meeting that we had, lasted hardly five seconds. (Stephen) Fleming was like: ‘Go, get it boys.’ And it got over.” he added.

Dhoni emphasised on the fact that most of the teams conduct long player meetings in order to tick some boxes as required by the team management and the owners.

At CSK though the captain and coach are given a lot of liberty with the way they want to conduct things and deal with the players. That is something that has worked brilliantly for CSK as that kind of freedom from the owners helps them to play the game in the way they want it to be played.

“I always have felt that this was one of the secrets why CSK keep doing that (winning the IPL). We don’t have a long list of meetings. We don’t have too many meetings because we’ve played so long each with other, against each other, you know the conditions so well, you exactly know how you need to operate. And there’s no rocket science.

“Yes, we’ve the bowlers’ meetings, the batters’ meeting, and I don’t become a part of the batters’ meeting. A lot of times, people do it because they need to tick a box. And in CSK, there’s no justification that happens… you know that the bowling coach doesn’t need to justify to the owners,” Dhoni said

Dhoni revealed that CSK actually held a bowlers meeting before the game when Chris Gayle had hit that blistering hundred against them.

“We had a bowler’s meeting you know, before Gayle hit that century (against CSK). A lot of times, it happens that you do it for the sake of doing it. You know you say before the finals, ‘Oh we did this, we did that.’ That’s not in our case. We try to keep it as simple as possible. What’s important as a coaching staff, or as a captain, you need to give advices to a player according to what they can achieve. All of a sudden, you can’t tell somebody, ‘Ok, you need to bowl outside off-stump yorkers,’ and that guy has never done that. So you’ve to tell that guy according to what his strength is and he’s to improve his weak areas. That’s what is brilliant about us,” Dhoni concluded.