Apart from his momentous contribution with the bat as well as gloves, MS Dhoni is also responsible for building many careers with constant backing and support.
Even after giving up the captaincy, Dhoni acted as the commander in chief in the field, shepherding the young wrist-spinning duo of Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal from behind the stumps.
In a few games between India and Australia, Chahal has had the better of hard-hitting Glenn Maxwell. The wily leg-spinner made Maxi his bunny, through his cunning changes of pace and variations.
During the limited-overs leg of the 2017 Australian tour of India, Chahal dismissed Maxwell on all three occasions he featured in the five-match ODI series.
The Australian swashbuckler was dropped for the final two matches of the ODI series. However, Maxwell wasn’t able to avoid giving his wicket away to Chahal, even in the T20I series, making it four out four dismissals in the white-ball series.
As it turned out, it was yet another masterstroke from the Indian talisman, who advised Chahal to bowl wide of the off-stump.
“This is the third match of the series. It was in Indore. As Indore has short straight boundaries, I planned to bowl him wide of the stumps. So actually me and Mahi bhai [Dhoni] had planned to bowl him wide of the stumps. And at this point, I was sure that he would charge down the pitch, so I bowled it even wider,” Chahal told Mayank Agarwal on bcci.tv.
“Normally as well, I bowl outside the off stump. He [Maxwell] wasn’t showing much patience in this very series, and every time I would come on to bowl, he’d try to attack me. So I had a conversation with Mahi Bhai about it, and he told me to mix things up and only bowl wide of the stumps when we’re sure that he is looking to step out,” he added.
India won the ODI series by 4-1 but had to share the T20I series 1-1 as the last of the three-match series was abandoned due to rain.
