6 instances when MS Dhoni was at the centre of a controversy

Former India captain MS Dhoni is known to be a calm cricketer on the field. While fans are used to his calm demeanour, there are times that he has lost his cool and lashed out.

These instances more often than not stir up a controversy in the media. India's most successful skipper has found himself in the middle of a controversy on multiple occasions. Here are 6 instances that MS Dhoni has found himself in a spot of bother.

6. Fined for post-match comments

It is not often you see 'Captain Cool' accusing the umpire of something. But during the 2015 IPL qualifier against the Mumbai Indians, Dwayne Smith was given out lbw in the very first over of CSK’s chase when the ball clearly appeared going down leg.

The skipper during the post-match presentation termed the decision ‘horrible’ and subsequently was fined 10% of his match fee. "I felt we lost too many in the middle. Not to forget Dwayne Smith got a horrible decision by any standards, but overall I think we need to blame ourselves, we were not up to the mark," were the exact words uttered by him.

But he did receive a lot of support from many quarters since the decision was a shocker. At the same time, there were many who argued that as an experienced leader, he should have never questioned an umpire’s call.

5. Conflict of interest

Two years ago, just ahead of the 2013 Champions Trophy in England, Dhoni was accused of holding stakes with Rhiti sports who were managing him, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja and Pragyan Ojha. The company denied the allegations and declared that he did not have any stakes at that particular time.

Former Cricketers were unhappy over Dhoni's alleged conflict of interest as they all suggested that the captain sell his shares if he had any. Since he was leading the team in all three formats besides leading the Chennai Super Kings in the IPL, there were fears that some players would have an unfair advantage regarding team selections.

4. Alleged rift with seniors

It all started in the year 2007 when he was made Captain. It was alleged that he was the reason behind Ganguly and Dravid's exclusion from the ODI team for the CB series in Australia. And then ahead of the 2009 T20 World Cup, several reports claimed that there was a rift between him and the then vice-captain Virender Sehwag.

He even came out with a statement to squash these rumours."Recent reports in the Indian media of a rift between myself and Sehwag amounts to nothing but false and irresponsible media reporting," he said.

And then during the 2011-12 CB series, he claimed that he cant play Sachin, Sehwag and Gambhir in the same team since they are slow on the field. Eventually, Sachin retired a few months later and Sehwag and Gambhir were dropped due to poor form.

3. Collision with Mustafizur Rahman

During the 25th over of India's run chase in the first ODI of the series against Bangladesh in 2015, Dhoni appeared to shove the bowler out of his way while going for a single.

Mustafizur Rahman appeared to come in the Indian skipper's path deliberately as he also did the same earlier when Rohit Sharma was batting. Despite that, a section of fans believe that Dhoni shouldn't have made physical contact with the youngster.

The Indian captain was fined 75% of his match fee for the incident.

2. The blame game from Yograj Singh

"I feel really ashamed when other cricketers come and tell me about Dhoni. Earlier, I used to think that people must be cribbing about Dhoni due to jealousy. But when the cricketers told me about him, I think I have never seen a terrible person like him in my life." These were the words uttered by Yuvraj Singh's father, Yograj Singh, to which Dhoni never responded.

In fact, Yuvraj took it upon himself to clear the air and revealed on Twitter that he has always had a great relationship with Dhoni. This wasn't the first time Dhoni was accused by a player's father. Earlier in 2013, during the spot-fixing controversy, Sreesanth's father claimed that Dhoni and Harbhajan were trying to ruin his son's career.

1. The spot-fixing scandal

This was undoubtedly the biggest controversy in his career and probably the one that Dhoni would have wished never to be associated with. The infamous 2013 spot-fixing controversy threw up so many murky details.

N Srinivasan's son-in-law, Gurunath Meiyyapan, was questioned for his alleged links with bookies and his proximity with the franchise was questioned. It was claimed that he was never a team official and was only an enthusiast. Dhoni was heavily questioned during the court hearings and was even accused by a prosecution lawyer of not being honest.

Usually a calm man, he finally broke his silence on the issue, "I know one thing, irrespective of what is there, when it comes to Indian cricket, my name keeps popping up. This [issue] has been settled, [but] something new will pop up. It keeps popping up. I am quite used to it. If there is nothing, some speculative story comes up, big or small. I have to keep dealing with all these things. It is [just] the end of one story, something else may start in a couple of days' time, and you can monitor it."