Follow UsMichael Hussey, one of the calmest and most talented middle-order batters that the game ever saw, put his coaching career with Chennai Super Kings at stake after he passed on a right advice at a wrong time and got MS Dhoni, one of the legends of the yellow brigade, castled against Rashid Khan during the 2018 IPL Qualifier 1.
Talking about the incident on the Backchat Podcast, Hussey narrated the entire saga.
“The night before the big game, the analyst sent me through this split screen of Rashid Khan. And it’s basically when he bowls his wrong’uns, he runs his fingers together and when he bowls his leggies, his fingers are apart. ‘Ooh this is good’. But this is the night before the game though, so I’m sitting thinking do I send this out to the batters or do I not? I sat looking at it for an hour because you don’t want to put too much stuff on guys' heads the night before the game.”
“But I’m sitting on this and thought I'd never forgive myself if I didn’t send this through and I sent it to the batting group. I said for what it's worth, you might want to use it or just ignore it if you don’t.”
But what happened after that made Hussey think that he might lose his coaching job at the franchise where he played cricket for six years in the IPL and which was a second home to him.
The Super Kings were 39/3 and Dhoni was batting with Faf du Plessis as Wankhede was becoming a batter’s nightmare.
Narrating what happened after Dhoni got ready to face his first ball against Rashid Khan, Hussey said, “We were like four down for nothing the next day and Dhoni was in with Faf at the other. Rashid Khan comes in first ball and bowls the wrong’un. Dhoni goes for the cover drive, hitting against the spin, bowled.”
“He comes in and looks me straight in the eye, and he goes, ‘I’ll bat my own f***ing way, thanks’ and sits down next to me. Oh, Coaching career, done! I sat for the rest of the game like a stunned mullet,” recounted Mr Cricket.
However, CSK won the game by two wickets as Faf du Plessis batted through, and Shardul Thakur hit three fours and a total of 15 runs in five balls. The yellow brigade didn't just win that game but also the tournament and after that, Dhoni had a chat with Hussey.
“Dhoni’s a great guy and he came up after the game and said, ‘The information was great, but I needed more time and a couple of net sessions to process it’,” said the former Australian cricketer.