Former Australian cricketer Michael Hussey has described former India captain MS Dhoni as an incredibly “wonderful” person, noting that his room stays open throughout the day during the IPL. He added that players often drop by to relax and even share some shisha, a flavored tobacco smoked through a waterpipe.

Dhoni has been a towering influence in the Chennai Super Kings setup since the inaugural IPL season in 2008. Even after giving up the captaincy, his presence remains as strong as ever, with the squad continuing to draw heavily from his cricketing wisdom, experience, and natural leadership.

Hussey stated that Dhoni’s off-field bonding with teammates is a key part when several cricketers have credited MS Dhoni’s influence on their growth at CSK.

“Dhoni is just the most amazing guy; his room is available and open 24 hours a day. So, anyone can go up there and just sit. He has got his lounge room; players just sit around, and they start talking cricket. Some of them like the ‘shisha,’ you know, the flavored tobacco stuff," Hussey said while speaking on The Overlap Cricket.

“So, that is their way of socializing and things like that. Credit to Dhoni, he opens his room up, lots of players go up, they bring food up, it is fantastic," Hussey said.

A similar thing was said by George Bailey, the former Australia captain and cricketer, seven years ago, who was part of the Chennai Super Kings setup in the IPL. He even revealed that MS Dhoni loves smoking hookah and set it up in his room.

“He likes smoking a bit of the sheesha or the hookah. So, he would often set that up in his room, and it was a very open-door policy. You would often find a lot of younger players there," George Bailey had said seven years ago.

Michael Hussey revealed that MS Dhoni does minimal training before matches.

“I have been a player at Chennai for 8 years and now a coach for about 8 years. I think the only time I have seen him catch a ball was when we wanted to knock in a new pair of gloves," Hussey said. 

MS Dhoni was retained by the CSK franchise for the IPL 2026 tournament as an uncapped player.