MS Dhoni the Great Finisher? -"It is all Because of Me" says an Ex-Indian Team Coach; Harbhajan Gives his Piece of Mind in Response!

While Mahendra Singh Dhoni entered the international cricket scene in 2004, he was a rather hard hitting batsman. However, over the years, he has become a more calm and composed finisher. Former Indian Cricket team’s coach Greg Chappell, on an online chat with the PlayWrite Foundation, recalled that he laid the foundation for this development in Dhoni’s game.

Chappell agreed that MSD was “the most powerful batsman” he had seen as he remembered how he scored 183 off 145 deliveries in 2005, against Sri Lanka. He revealed a conversation that he had had with him after that match.

"I remember having a conversation with him. We had a home series against Sri Lanka," Chappell said. "Dhoni got a 180 in one game. He absolutely took them apart. He hit a lot of boundaries and he hit a lot of sixes. The next game was in Pune, and I remember having a conversation with him about his overall ability and I felt that if he just went through his career trying to hit boundaries and sixes, he may not achieve what he should achieve in cricket.

"Now we talked about the fact that if he could learn to hit the ball along the ground as well...even though he was good at hitting boundaries, it was still a high-risk way of playing. If he could take some of that risk out of it, he could become one of the best finishers in world cricket," he added.

"I remember that game in Pune, we didn't have many to chase and when he came in, we had 80 or 100 runs to get," the former India coach said. So, I threw him a challenge to see if he could get all of his runs along the ground. I said 'We should win, but I want you to go out there and make sure we win it'," Chappell said.

"You're not allowed to hit the ball in the air until we've won the game," he said. "Somehow, you've got to find the thrill in being the best finisher rather than one of the best hitters of boundaries and maybe be remembered for some exciting innings, because you could become the best finisher the game has ever seen.

"Luckily, he took the challenge, although I remember RP Singh was the 12th man, and mid-way through his innings, he came to me and said MS wants to know if he can hit the ball in the air now," Chappell recalled.

"We still needed about 20 runs to win, so I said to RP 'you go back and tell him, he can hit the ball in the air when we have won the game,” he said.

However, Chappel was known to be too radical during the time he coached the Indian team. For instance he had asked Irfan Pathan to focus more on his batting. Remembering this, Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh tweeted that the former coach has asked Dhoni to play along the ground because of his aggressive batting skills. Further he implied that Greg Chappell could not be trusted. He also slammed his tweet with a hashtag that read that those were the worst days for cricket under Greg.

He asked Dhoni to play along the ground coz coach was hitting everyone out the park.. He was playing different games 😜#worstdaysofindiancricketundergreg 😡😡😡 https://t.co/WcnnZbHqSx

— Harbhajan Turbanator (@harbhajan_singh) May 13, 2020