MS Dhoni reveals how he controlled anger on field and became ‘captain cool’
In a recent interview, Dhoni has opened up about how he managed to captain India in such a calm manner without getting much frustrated and angry in tense situations on the field.
India captain Rohit Sharma has been quite animated in pressure situations in the recent few matches. The India opener has been seen shouting and venting his anger on players for their mistakes when things go awry. Many fans have compared Rohit to former captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni who was famous for holding his composure in the direst of situations and rarely displayed signs of frustration and anger. Such was his body language during matches that Dhoni was popularly known as 'captain cool'.
In a recent interview with Livfast, Dhoni opened up about how he managed to captain India in such a calm manner without getting much frustrated and angry in tense situations on the field.
"Honestly, when we are on the field, we do not want to make any mistakes whether it's misfielding, dropped catches or any other mistake.
"I always try to get into their shoes to figure out why a player dropped a catch or why some player misfielded. Getting angry does not help matters. There are already 40,000 people watching from the stands and crores of people watching the match (on TV, streaming platforms). I had to see what the reason was (for fielding lapses)," Dhoni said.
"If a player is 100 per cent attentive on the ground and he misses a catch despite that, I don't have a problem. Of course, I also want to see how many catches he took during practice before that.. If he had a problem somewhere whether he is making efforts to get better or not. I used to focus on all these aspects instead of just focusing on that a catch was dropped. Maybe we lost a game because of that but the effort was always to try to step into their shoes," explained the 41-year old.
"I am also human. I would feel the same way inside like you all felt. When you go out and play a match among yourselves, you would feel bad. We represent our country, so we would feel worse. But we always try and control our emotions," he further added.
"Sitting on the outside, it's always easy to say we should have played in a certain way but it's not easy. We are representing our country but the opposition players are also representing their country. They are there to play the game and a lot of times, there will be ups and downs," said Dhoni.
The former India captain also urged fans to keep supporting Team India in all sports. He said that sportspersons worked very hard for good results and some failures were not ideal reflection of their genuine efforts.