The 2013 season of Indian Premier League was one of the most controversial ones. It was slowly uncovered during the season that three of the Rajasthan Royals players were involved in spot-fixing and officials from Chennai Super Kings were involved in illegal betting on franchise’s matches.

In July 2015, the Justice Lodha Committee pronounced a two-year ban for Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings, sending shock waves through the Indian cricket community. Chennai made a tremendous comeback to the IPL fold winning the IPL 2018 title, their third overall.

In Roar of the Lion, a documentary released on Hotstar ahead of the new IPL season, Dhoni talks about the dark period in his career when CSK was accused of various wrongdoings, with their owner’s son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan being arrested in May 2013.

Here are a few excerpts from Dhoni’s interviews during the documentary.

MS Dhoni said, ”2013 was the most difficult phase in my life, I was never depressed as much as I was then. The closest was the 2007 World Cup when we lost in the group stages. But all said and done, 2007 happened because we did not play good cricket.”

CSK's then owner N Srinivasan’s son-in-law and team principal Gurunath Meiyappan was arrested on the day of the IPL 2015 finals between CSK and MI for his involvement in betting on CSK matches.

Dhoni also spoke about this and said, “Initially, when Guru’s name came up, [we knew] he was part of the team, all said and done. But in what capacity, that is debatable. Was he the owner, the team principal, the motivator... what exactly was he? I don’t know if anyone from the franchise introduced Guru to us as the owner... we all knew him as the son-in-law.”

On his name cropping up in the investigations, Dhoni says, “My name also came up in talks of fixing. They started showcasing in the media or social media as if the team was involved, I was involved. Is it possible [in cricket]? Yes, it is possible, anyone can do spot-fixing. The problem when people think you are very strong is that more often than not, nobody comes and asks: how are you doing. It was more of how I dealt with it. I did not want to talk about it to others, at the same time it was scratching me. I don’t want anything to affect my cricket. For me, cricket is the most important thing.”

“Whatever I am today, whatever I have achieved is because of cricket. So, the biggest crime that I can commit personally is not murder. It’s actually match-fixing because it doesn’t get restricted to me. If I’m involved in such a thing, it has a bigger impact. I don’t think in my life I would deal with something that is tougher than this,” Dhoni said on why allegations on his name involved in match-fixing were untrue.

He further said about his silence on the issue, “What makes it even tougher is that as the Indian captain you keep going to press conferences. There is a known line that is drawn that that was the IPL and this is the Indian cricket team.”

Dhoni opined on the quantum of punishment levied on CSK, “We did deserve the punishment but the only thing is the quantum of the punishment. we got to know that CSK will be banned for two years. There was a mixed feeling that time. Yes, there was a mistake from our side [the franchise] but were the players involved in this? What mistake did we, as players, do to go through all of that?”

On his association with CSK, Dhoni said, “My association with Chennai Super Kings is like a match made on matrimonial site – an arranged marriage. The amount of respect and love we’ve received from the fans, it’s like how they treat god.”

(excerpts from MS Dhoni interviews during Roar of the Lion documentary)