The gentleman’s game has its own masters, of whom they are truly proud. One name that always springs to mind is the legendary MS Dhoni, known for his calm and composed demeanor. Although we have also witnessed a few incidents where this calm and composed man lost his cool, eventually landing him in controversy, mostly in Indian Premier League (IPL) games.
Since everything is not black and white, Chennai Super Kings’ master, MS Dhoni, has also been involved in a few controversies in the past. Let’s take a look at a few incidents that still leave scars on MS Dhoni’s IPL career.
Controversial No-Ball incident in 2019 IPL match against Rajasthan Royals
In the group stage match against the Rajasthan Royals in 2019. We witnessed something unusual that we usually don’t expect from MS Dhoni. After restricting RR to 152 runs, the incident occurred when Ben Stokes was bowling and CSK needed 8 runs in 3 balls. A full toss was delivered, and the Santner-Jadeja duo grabbed two runs. Initially, umpire Ulhas Gandhe signaled a no-ball as he thought the ball was above waist height for Santner.
But the leg umpire, Bruce Oxenford, overruled the decision. All this havoc made Dhoni furious, who stormed onto the ground and had a heated argument with umpire Bruce Oxenford. After a lot of chaos, Oxenford’s decision remained final, even though replays suggested it was a no-ball. This whole incident landed MS Dhoni in trouble, as he was fined 50 percent of his match fees.
Rising Pune Supergiants Owners vs MS Dhoni
Apart from the on-field troubles, MS Dhoni was involved in another subtle controversy, this time with the owner of the Rising Pune Supergiants, Harsh Goenka. Although it is wrong to blame Dhoni here, Harsh Goenka initially set the fire with his words. On X, Goenka was seen criticizing Dhoni’s performance in a game and also his captaincy of the RPS team when he was leading the side in 2016.
His tweets seemed to suggest that the team was performing better under the new captaincy of Steve Smith. As RPG sacked Dhoni after the 2016 IPL, stating that Dhoni was not as effective in that edition. After Harsh’s tweet, there was an ocean of support for MS Dhoni, as everyone bashed Harsh Goenka for his disrespectful comments against the five-time IPL-winning captain, MS Dhoni.
You don’t want to chop and change!
Speaking about MS controversies, another incident that surely comes to mind is when MS was seen criticizing their own team players. Dhoni, who is known for maintaining team balance and always supporting youngsters. Once lost his calm during the IPL 13 edition, and that too in public.
IPL 2020 was the first time CSK was unable to qualify for the playoffs. After consecutive failures of CSK in 2020, Dhoni could not stop himself from saying, “You don’t want to chop and change. Insecurity is something you don’t want to prevail in the dressing room. Fair enough, this season we were not really there. Also, the youngsters, we did not see the spark to push the guys. But what this result has done is give those youngsters a chance in the rest of the tournament.”
Everyone thought he was putting his fingers on Ruturaj Gaikwad. Although it turned out to be not true, as he was not criticizing him. Also, Gaikwad later became the biggest reason behind CSK winning the title in 2021, with 636 runs in 16 matches. He was the highest run-getter and also the Orange Cap holder that season.
Conflict of interest with Rhiti Sports
Rhiti Sports was a company that used to manage the former skipper. The company also managed Dhoni’s best friend like Suresh Raina.
According to an Economic Times report, Dhoni had a 15% stake in Rhiti Sports. This meant that whatever profits the sports management company would have made, 15% of them would have gone to Dhoni.
However, the management made it clear after all this huss ,that Dhoni was a shareholder only for a brief period, and currently has no stakes.
Dhoni’s conflict of interests with the company was a big headline at the time of the IPL 2015. As Dhoni faced lots of criticism from many former cricketers, everyone questioned his integrity.
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