It all began with an old interview of Irfan Pathan, taking indirect jibe at MS Dhoni over his sudden exile from the India setup. During the interaction, Pathan made a remark on players setting up "hookah", something which he wasn't fond of. Although he didn't take any names but fans were quick to connect the dots.
Ever since plenty have been said on the alleged "hookah" activities at Dhoni's room and the latest to join the bandwagon is Australia legend Michael Hussey. Speaking on The Overlap Cricket podcast, the Australia disclosed a lesser known side of the close bonding that Dhoni has built at Chennai Super Kings (CSK), which Hussey has been part of during his playing days.
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“Dhoni is just the most amazing guy, his room is available open 24 hours a day. So, anyone can go up there and just sit. He has got his lounge room, players just sit around, they start talking cricket, some of them like the ‘shisha’, you know, the flavoured tobacco stuff," said Hussey.
“So, that is their way of socialising and things like that. Credit to Dhoni, he opens his room up, lots of players go up, they bring food up, it is fantastic," he added.
Hussey is not the only overseas player to have spoken about this side of Dhoni. Former Australian cricketer George Bailey, who was also part of the CSK dressing previously, in a video posted by Cricket Australia in 2018 had made similar revelations. "He likes smoking a bit of the shisha or the hookah. So, he quite often would set that up in his room, and it was very much open-door policy. You would go in and quite often find a lot of younger players there. For India or a lot of other cricket teams, it can be hierarchical, but he certainly broke that down" he said.
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