The story behind the nicknames of Indian players

The Indian players gave their fans a more detailed knowledge about themselves in a new video for BCCI.tv when they shared the interesting stories about the origins of their nickname. Fans are well-aware of the nicknames most of the Indian players are known by. But, this is the first time that they come to know the real reason behind those name.

MS Dhoni perhaps has one of the most famous nicknames among Indian cricketers. He begins with explaining how he got his nickname ‘Mahi’. The India skipper says that initially it use to be ‘Mahe’ which is half of his full name ‘Mahendra.’ But, as he got famous people started calling him ‘Mahi’ more often and that how the name got stuck.

The flamboyant Virat who is known for his aggression and no-nonsense attitude on the field. However, this hardcore personality has a very adorable nickname – ‘Cheeku.’ Kohli says he got this nickname because he has big ears. One of his coaches gave him this name because he thought he looks like ‘Cheeku the Rabbit’ from Champak comics because of his chubbiness, short hairs and big ears.

Ravindra Jadeja has couple of very famous nicknames, courtesy to his social media fame. However, he is most frequently called as ‘Jaddu’.

Jadeja says, “my surname is Jadeja and everybody likes to call me ‘Jaddu’ which is the short form of my surname is Jadeja and everybody likes to call me ‘Jaddu’ which is the short form of it”

Ajinkya Rahane says that he is called ‘Ajju’ and everybody in his family including his parents, his wife and his grandparents call him by this name.

Shikhar Dhawan, known has ‘Gabbar’ and ‘Jatt’ simply says that he loves people calling him by his name whereas Rohit Sharma, who is famous by the name of ‘Hitman’, has a very interesting name by his teammates. Rohit is called as ‘shaana.’ He says that he got this name from Yuvraj because he feels that he is the ‘shaana’ of the team.

We often hear MS Dhoni calling Ravichandran Ashwin as ‘Ash’ from behind the stumps. Ashwin says that he gets this nickname from shortening his name. “My nickname is Ash and the name comes from shortening the whole name of mine and I like the name because there is a Bollywood connection, a Bollywood superstar shares the name with me,” Ashwin explains.

Co-incidentally, there are two ‘Sonu’s’ in the Indian team. Suresh Raina and Harbhajan Singh share the same nickname.

According to Raina somebody just called him by that name one day when he was a kid and that’s how he got this name.

However, Harbhajan states that he is called as ‘Sonu’ but doesn’t know from where he got the nickname ‘Bhajji’.

“My nickname is ‘sonu’ but now people call me ‘Bhajji’. I don’t know from where I got this name but people know me more as ‘Bhajji’ than Harbhajan Singh”

The newest star in the Indian team, Hardik Pandya, says that his nickname is ‘Harry’ but his teammates called by various other names as well. “My teammate call me anything they want but Raina bhai says that I’m India’s Neymar.”

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