Robin Uthappa recently revealed how strange it was for him to call his good friend MS Dhoni 'Mahi Bhai', like the other teammates.
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Veteran Chennai Super Kings (CSK) player Robin Uthappa recently revealed how strange it was for him to call his good friend MS Dhoni ‘Mahi Bhai’, like the other teammates. While speaking on Ravichandran Ashwin’s YouTube channel, Uthappa shared that he spoke to Dhoni about this and he asked him to call him by a name of his choice only.
Uthappa said: “Today, it is very hard for me to call him Mahi Bhai. Because when I got to know him, he was Mahi, MS. I played with him after 10-12 or 13 years. So, I asked him, what should I call you, dude? Like, I don’t know. Should I call you Mahi bhai? Because everyone around me is calling you that. He was like, call me MS, or call me Mahi or call me however you want.”
Meanwhile, he also recalled that they first met at the Challenger Trophy in 2004 and it was cricketer-turned-coach Sridhar Sriram who introduced him to MS Dhoni as well.
“I met MS Dhoni for the first time in 2004. I played my first Challengers trophy at that time and it was in Bombay. Sridharan Sriram was also there during that series and I was very close to him. Sree bhai was also close to MS Dhoni and they also got along pretty well. I met MS through him and then we started hanging out together. But that meeting was very brief,” he further added.
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However, they both became friends on a tour to West Indies, which was his first tour with the national side. He also became friends with Irfan Pathan, RP Singh and Piyush Chawala during the series as well.
He said: “When I joined the Indian team, my first tour outside of India was to West Indies. I made my debut, then we went to Dubai where we played 3 matches against Pakistan and from there, we directly went to West Indies. MS and I became really good friends during the course of that series. I didn’t play many games and was sitting on the bench.”
“MS was playing, but we spent a lot of time together and we became really close. MS, Irfan Nathan, RP Singh, and Piyush Chawala all of us hung together. Our daily menu was Naan and, Daal Makhani. RP loves Jeera Aloo and Irfan loves butter chicken,” he continued.
The veteran is currently playing for the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the ongoing 15th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2022). He is a key player on the CSK squad and now he has been opening as well. He also revealed that even before MS Dhoni became the Indian captain, players would listen to him carefully when he spoke in the dressing room.
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He explained: “There was something different about MS even before he became the captain. He was very different. In that era when MS played for India, all of them very special in a slightly shinner way. But he was special in a simple way. Always under the radar, quiet and simple. But had a great sense of humor. When he spoke, everyone listened and that was not when he was the captain at all. Even before he was the captain. He would only speak when he was spoken to.”
Notably, MS Dhoni is the only captain to have won all three ICC trophies so far. Even he successfully led CSK to four IPL titles as well.
