Khaleel Ahmed discloses how MS Dhoni's advice helped him get his first wicket

Young left-arm pacer Khaleel Ahmed had a great run in the recently concluded Asia Cup. He hit the right lengths and bowled at a good pace. He picked three wickets on his international debut against Hong Kong. However, it wasn’t a smooth sailing for the youngster as the Hong Kong openers went hard after him initially.

Anshuman Rath and Nizakat Khan stunned India with their partnership and almost pulled off an upset in the tournament. However, Khaleel picked the wicket of Nizakat Khan just at the right time to get his team back into the game. Khan was looking dangerous at the stage and it looked as if the game was drifting away.

He picked another two wickets later to help the side seal a nervy win. In a recent interview with Times Now, Khaleel Ahmed revealed that it was MS Dhoni‘s advice which helped him get his maiden wicket.

The team is lucky to have MS Dhoni

Khaleel opened up about his debut and said that they didn’t expect the Hong Kong openers to put up such a fight. Chasing 286 runs, both the openers got to their half-centuries and put up a partnership of 174 runs. The Tonk-born cricketer said that he tried everything against the duo but nothing worked for him.

Then, he added that MS Dhoni walked up to him and asked to bowl slightly fuller which worked in his favour and helped him get his maiden wicket. He added that the team was lucky to have a player like Dhoni who takes up the role of a mentor in the side.

“Dhoni bhai walked up to me and said ‘ pace maintain kar ke rakh aur thoda aage daal’ (maintain your pace and bowl a bit fuller). I tried it twice and it worked for me. Finally, I managed to break the opening stand. We all are lucky to have Dhoni in the team,” he said. Meanwhile, Khaleel is also hopeful of making it to the Indian squad for the upcoming Windies ODI series.

Keep following CricTracker for more news and updates.