India Veteran MS Dhoni reveals his unusual superstitious side

The legendary MS Dhoni is amongst the most loved and respected cricketers of his generation and there are many reasons behind his unmatchable fandom. The 37-year-old has every other ICC trophy to his name, having won the World Cup, the World T20, and the Champions Trophy in 2011, 2007 and 2013 respectively. He also captained India to the top of the ICC Test rankings.

With over 15,000 runs at the international level, Dhoni is currently at the fag end of his career, but he hasn’t lost the zeal and urge to succeed by any stretch of the imagination. The wicketkeeper-batsman didn’t have the best of 2018 and many reckoned that his time was up. However, the ongoing year has been equivalent to a fairy tale for the Jharkhand-born experienced wicket-keeper.

He is currently in England and Wales for the 2019 edition of the World Cup, where India is scheduled to start their journey versus South Africa on June 5 at the Rose Bowl in Southampton. He didn’t have a great game against New Zealand in the warm-ups and perished early, but turned up with a century against Bangladesh in the second practice match at the Sophia Gardens in Cardiff.

Apart from his masterful prowess on the pitch, Dhoni also has a superstitious angle attached to his game. He talked about a number of steps he would take while going to the field. Furthermore, he went down the memory lane to a time when he lost a significant number of tosses in Test cricket.

I am better when I have more options

“I think most of the cricketers are superstitious about a lot of things and we call it more routine than anything else. We keep figuring out it was a left leg or right leg, I was also somebody like okay when I go inside the field I would take left leg then after a while I got confused whether it was a left leg or right leg?” Dhoni was quoted as saying in the Indian Cricket Heroes awards ceremony.

“I am better when I have more options, the moment I have two options I get confused. There was a time when I lost 29 out of 32 or 33 tosses and most of the Test matches were in India. A lot of times I would go and okay I will be like okay I want to change what I have called and it was during IPL and I was like okay I don’t remember what I called in the last game, every time it was new to me,” he mentioned.

“I kept changing a lot of things, routine because it is more controllable at last we can say okay that was something that was in my hand. Whether its a glove, whether it’s a pad. I think 100 percent cricketers they have this superstition oblique routine, you may call it whatever you want,” he added.