Gary Kirsten has heaped praises on former India captain MS Dhoni and called him an extremely loyal cricketer. He is also very proud of the Indian army and is an honorary Lt Col from the 106 Parachute Regiment of the Territorial Army. He qualified as a paratrooper after completing five parachute training jumps from Indian Army aircraft in the Agra training camp.
Kirsten, India’s 2011 World Cup-winning coach recalled an instance when Dhoni canceled a team trip to Bangalore’s Yelahanka AirForce Station, despite receiving invitation to visit their base camp.
The camp’s ‘Indians only’ policy proved to be the deal-breaker for Dhoni as the Indian team had the likes of Paddy Upton and Eric Simmons in support staff apart from Kirsten. Understanding the precarious position, Dhoni took no time in calling off the trip for the entire team.
“I’ve said on many occasions, he’s one of the most impressive people I’ve met. He’s a great leader of people, he’s got an incredible presence as a leader, but I think he’s loyal, and that’s the most important thing. I’ll never forget, just before the World Cup, we were invited to Bangalore to go to the flight school, to go and kind of have a look at that,” Kirsten told commentator Radhakrishnan Sreenivasan, during his YouTube show The RK Show.
“Obviously, we had a couple of foreigners in our support staff, and we got word back on the morning before the whole team was meant to go – and everyone was looking forward to the event – that the three South Africans, which were myself, Paddy Upton and Eric Simmons, weren’t going to be allowed into the flight school because it was seen as a potential security risk,” he further added.
MS Dhoni should be allowed to retire from cricket on his own terms: Gary Kirsten
“So MS canceled the whole event. He just said, ‘These are my people. If they’re not allowed in, none of us are going’. And that was what he was about,” Kirsten added.
The South African was really fond of Dhoni during that entire tenure and now, as he revealed, the appreciation was actually mutual.
“He was very loyal to me, and I think he saw it as well. There were times when we didn’t always win games and we’d have some tough times. We’d spend a lot of time, just one on one together, talking through, taking the team forward. I think we built a strong relationship in the three years we had together,” Kirsten signed off.
