India spinner Yuzvendra Chahal has opened up and shared his experience of playing under MS Dhoni’s captaincy, Chahal said he used to blindly follow the skipper which helped improve his bowling and get wickets.
Chahal Said:
“He is the only person, unke saamne aate hai meri bolti bandh ho jaati hai (I am tongue-tied in front of him). I don’t speak a lot irrespective of the kind of mood I am in. I will just sit calmly and silently just sit and I reply only if Mahi bhai asks something. Otherwise, I just keep quiet,” he said.
When asked: If you are bowling and Dhoni is your captain so as a professional what is he doing for you is he guiding you? what was the strategy?
“I think I have blindly trusted him, if he told me something I used to follow it, 95% I followed him and 5% I told him my plans also, he is the wicket-keeper and when I used to come for bowling after the 10th over he knows how the player will play and what are the situations (of the pitch)”. Chahal said.
“There were so many occasions when he told me to just keep bowling wicket to wicket and not to try anything else, when I followed his advice I got the wickets in the same over or the next over so blind trust is very important” He said.
“He makes 50% of my bowling easy by guiding me, for a new bowler it takes 2-3 overs to adjust and understand the pitch, but he always tells us beforehand how the pitch is behaving (starting of the over) and we used to attack from the first overs, I have always blindly trusted him if mahi bhai has said something then yes I have to do it”. he said
“When were playing a T20 match against South Africa in 2018 at Centurion, That was the first time, I was hit for 64 runs in four overs. [Heinrich] Klaasen was smashing me (hitting my over), I gave around 50 runs in 3 overs, so he asked me whether I would bowl round the wicket I said okay, but then Klaasen hit me for a six,” he said.
“I was walking back and thought what to do then Mahi bhai came to me and I said Mahi bhai tell me and he said “I was just coming toward you, “aaj tere din nahi hai, koi baat nahi’ (Today is not your day, it’s okay). But he told me that I should try not to concede a boundary on the remaining five balls, on those as that will help the team. From there I understood and learnt that even if you have a bad day (bad bowling day), you can still support your team,” he added.