Abu Dhabi: India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Monday arrived here to captain Chennai Super Kings in the seventh edition of the Indian Premier League.
After attending a press briefing to announce a sponsorship deal between UST Global and CSK, he was at his eloquent best.
In response to a query from Gulf News about how it feels to be here after recently taking part in the Twenty20 World Cup in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and plunge straight into the IPL, Dhoni said: “That is the challenge now. Apart from playing good cricket and dealing with all the stuff that goes around, one of the biggest challenges for an international cricketer is about how quickly you can adapt to different scenarios.
“As you rightly said, coming from Dhaka all the way here is similar to some of the players who played in New Zealand and straight away went for Asia Cup and then stayed there.
“The IPL is another challenge and you have to actually adapt well and quickly so as to perform. In fact, it is a good challenge because that actually improves you as a cricketer because today all the international players are constantly on the move.
“They may be playing in India and within seven days time they will be playing in Australia or some other part of the world. So you learn to adapt quickly and keep improving as an international cricketer.”
Dhoni feels that the biggest advantage his team have is that he has a squad made up of like-minded players.
“Right from the first edition of IPL, we have got like-minded players in our side. It is not that we did a background check on anyone before getting them. I am sure our coach Flem [Stephen Fleming] will agree that close to 95 per cent of them we got have been like-minded people, though we did have some difficulty in managing a couple of them.
“But, overall, we give a lot of emphasis on the dressing-room environment. What we want individuals to do is to create an environment where each and every one is in a good mental condition to perform, and that can only happen if the players in the dressing room are helping each other. So that has been the case for us always,” he said.
Dhoni then went on to praise Fleming for his support. “We have certain officials who also move in the same direction and work together, and that make the job relatively easy. This is why our coach is very relaxed as you can see as there will be no fights going on in the dressing room in the next couple of months.
“Our coach really helps in that because more often than not as captain I’m busy with the senior players of the team, and at times I won’t really know what is happening in the dressing room with some of the guys who are not playing. Flem takes the responsibility and I try to manage all the individuals who play a part in the game.”
Does Dhoni feel that his team is one of the strongest squads in the event and can win the title? “For strength you have to see what kind of form the players are in and also look at the fitness issues because everyone plays a lot of game and the composition of the side will depend on the fitness of the players and their form. Since you are allowed to play with four foreigners, you also have to see the whole composition of the side.”
Sometimes you may have to omit a player who is a very big player because if he comes in, then the side may not look as balanced as somebody who is not as big a players as the other individual but adds to the balance of the side,” he added.
“The good thing about our squad is we have been a side that had not many changes even after the first auction as we try to retain as many players and we tried to do it in the second auction as well.”
