MS Dhoni cancelled a team trip to a flight school as non-Indians weren’t allowed, recalls Gary Kirsten

Apart from being loved for his impeccable leadership skills, MS Dhoni was and continues to be loved for his loyalty too. As per former India head coach Gary Kirsten, loyalty was one of the virtues in MS Dhoni that stood out.

Kirsten narrated an incident in which MS Dhoni cancelled a team trip to a flight school because the South Africans in the team’s coaching staff would not be allowed entry there due to security reasons.

“One of the most impressive people I have met, he is a great leader of people, he’s got incredible presence as a leader, but the most important thing is that he is loyal,” Kirsten said about Dhoni on The RK Show on YouTube.

“I’ll never forget, just before the World Cup, we were invited in Bangalore to go to the flight school, to go and kind of have a look at that. 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 narrated.

“So MS cancelled 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 said.

MS Dhoni and Gary Kirsten shared a good relationship

Kirsten coached India from 2008 to 2011. He was the coach of the Indian team when they won the ODI World Cup in 2011 and in 2009, when India attained the No.1 Test ranking for the first time in history.

He and MS Dhoni reportedly shared a great bond. On 5 June 2011, Kirsten was appointed the full-time coach of the South Africa team for a term of two years.