Mahendra Singh Dhoni is an iconic cricketer. Aside from the captaincy and wicketkeeping, he dominates the strategy. Aside from this, Mahi’s greatest specialty was keeping his cool during the match no matter how tense the pitch was. He followed this tradition for years while captaining the Indian team. After this, Dhoni follows the same tradition as the captain of the IPL Chennai Super Kings team. Dhoni did not limit himself in this art, but today many young players in the India team have learned from him to remain calm in difficult times. Maharashtra opener and captain Rituraj Gaikwad also learned from MS Dhoni to remain calm and neutral in difficult times. He revealed this during a conversation with former cricketer Akash Chopra.
Rituraj had scored 220 points against Uttar Pradesh in the Vijay Hazare Trophy quarterfinal on 28 November. During this, he scored seven straight sixes in one over Shiva Singh. He scored an unbeaten 220 off 159 balls while batting past Atishi in the match. Rituraj hit 10 fours and 16 sixes in his innings. He is only the third batsman in the world to hit seven sixes in List A cricket. Speaking to Akash Chopra after this brilliant inning, he said that he learned from Mahendra Singh Dhoni to remain neutral in any situation. He said that Dhoni has taught me to remain neutral when things don’t go my way. He taught that win or lose, the team environment must be good.
Rituraj Gaikwad has been playing for Chennai Super Kings in the IPL for the past few seasons. They say that when the team loses the game, factions begin to form in the team. But Dhoni did not allow this to happen. He said that after losing the match, everyone used to stay calm for 10-15 minutes. But Dhoni bhai used to come back from the presentation and tell us, easy guys, it happens. During this, the Maharashtrian captain also recounted how Dhoni used to keep the meeting time short. He used to say that it is not possible to win every game.