Kuldeep and I succeeded largely due to Dhoni’s help, reveals Yuzvendra Chahal

Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav might have combinedly played just 4 ODIs under the captaincy of MS Dhoni, but despite not having the official ‘leader’ label, the Jharkhand man spoon-fed the duo from behind the wickets. Dhoni, arguably the best wicket-keeper of his generation, would often be giving instructions from behind the stumps to both the wrist spinners - Kuldeep and Chahal - and there have been multiple instances where a ‘tip’ from the veteran helped either bowler claim a wicket.   

In this regard, Chahal, one half of the KulCha combo, has credited the success of both himself and Kuldeep to Dhoni. The leg-spinner revealed that Dhoni assessed and understood conditions like no other and added that in the veteran’s absence, both himself and Kuldeep generally took two overs to get a hang of the wicket.

"Because of him Kuldeep Yadav and I succeeded. We used to get a lot of help from him from behind the wicket. If Dhoni was there, 50 per cent of my work was already done,” News18 quoted Chahal as saying.

"Dhoni knew how the pitch was behaving. Before the first ball, we knew what the pitch was like because of him. Otherwise, when Dhoni was not there, we would take two overs to understand the pitch.”

The limited-over matches in the 2018 tour of South Africa were ground-breaking for both Kuldeep and Chahal and the Haryana-born leggie revealed that it was Dhoni’s help which propelled them to succeed in the tour. Together, in ODIs in that tour, the duo picked a remarkable 33 wickets in just 12 innings.

"In the match, since Virat (Kohli) and Rohit (Sharma) were on the boundary, then Dhoni was the nearest senior, he would help us always. Dhoni also helped Kuldeep and I a lot during the tour of South Africa."

Dhoni’s decision to retire came as a shock and took people by surprise, especially due to the fact that it came right ahead of the 2020 edition of the IPL. According to Chahal, the COVID-19 pandemic might have played a hand in the same as he believes, Dhoni would have played the World T20 if not for its postponement to 2021.

"Dhoni's retirement was very shocking news. I think Corona also played a role in this decision, otherwise Dhoni would have played T20 World Cup.”