Hailed as one of the greatest captains of all-time, it is safe to say that Mahendra Singh Dhoni will go down as a legend of Indian cricket and the sport in general. He is known to be cool and calculative with no time to get into unnecessary controversies or trouble. However, being the Indian captain comes with its fair share of controversy – whether you like it or not and here are 5 controversies surrounding MS Dhoni:
Spot fixing allegations:
In the 2013 IPL, it was alleged that Dhoni was involved in “match fixing.” It was found out that Dhoni held a 15% stake in a company known as Rhiti sports that also represented Suresh Raina and Ravindra Jadeja. It was said that Dhoni favoured these two as it meant more money into the company as appearance fees for playing for their teams. This would have violated BCCI norms but the entire case disappeared.
Dhoni’s push on Mustafizur Rahman:
In the ODI series versus the Bangladeshis, Dhoni was involved in an altercation with bowler Mustafizur Rahman. The incident occurred in the second innings where Dhoni crashed into him while taking the run. It was alleged that Rahman was purposely blocking the batsmen’s path while running and Rohit Sharma too had raised the same concern earlier in the innings. Rahman was shaken and had to be taken out of the field.
“Horrible” comments on umpiring:
Following a match against the Mumbai Indians, Dhoni was fined after calling an umpiring decision “horrible.” His team’s batsman Dwayne Smith was wrongly adjudged LBW and Dhoni did not hold back in the post-match press conference. He did receive a 10% fee and some flak for questioning the umpire.
Ending the era of Indian cricket:
Many people alleged that Dhoni was the reason behind many experienced players such as Dravid and Ganguly’s exclusion from the ODI team. The series against Australia featured relative newbies and Dhoni had always made the suggestion that the seniors were slow on the field. Soon, Sehwag and Gambhir too left the squad and many allege that Dhoni played a big role in ensuring that it happened.
Not the Lord of the game:
Following an interview with a popular Indian magazine, Dhoni was issued a warrant as the cover photo was said to have offended many. It features Dhoni as the Lord Vishnu and depicted him as someone who ruled the endorsement and advertisement industry.
A lot of people felt that the cover hurt Hindu sentiments while others said that there should be a line between freedom of speech and expression and this did not cross that.
By Rohit Nair
Note: The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of wordpress-706604-2345306.cloudwaysapps.com.
