George Bailey was all praise for MS Dhoni in Cricket Australia’s congratulatory video for the 37-year-old on becoming the first Asian captain to lead a side in 200 ODIs. Bailey started by saying, “he’s just a picture of calmness and sereneness. It’s pretty amazing.”
“I mean all the Indian players the pressure they play under in and the scrutiny that they face but MS… I’m sure if he does feel pressure, I have never seen it. I have seen walk him to the wicket with games all but impossible to win and he finds a way to get you home,” he added.
Bailey also spoke about the impact that Dhoni have on bowlers. “He has such confidence and such a steely determination and belief that he inspires the bloke with the ball to do the right thing”.
“He can really panic some bowlers, it’s quite funny going to some bowling meetings because, he would never come to the bowling meetings and the bowlers would spend all this time preparing, looking at wagon wheels and how they’re going to bowl to a certain batsman and then you’d walk on the field with the ball in the hand at the top of the mark and MS just points at a completely different direction. you can see a few bowlers’ eyes start to spin.”
In addition to this, Bailey also revealed the secrets behind how Dhoni bonds with youngsters.
“He 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 open door policy. You would go in and quite often find a lot of younger players there,” said Bailey.
Dhoni’s former CSK teammate believes that the former Indian skipper is doing a great job by breaking down barriers among teammates. “India, or possibly a lot of cricket teams, can be quite hierarchal, but he certainly broke that down. So you’d just find him in his room late at night chatting with everyone, inevitably about different facets of the game. It was a great way to break down barriers.”
“The greatest thing that I took from him was just the ability of him, with his calmness, to impact the calmness of the team with the chaos and whatever might be happening in the game. On numerous occasions when you be so calm behind the wicket, you know, with the bat in hand you firmly believe that he’s got a plan he’s got something coming here and it’s gonna be okay,” he concluded.
