"God won’t do anything" – Indian pacer recalls words of wisdom from MS Dhoni

Gujarat Titans (GT) pacer Ishant Sharma recently shared his words of wisdom from former India captain MS Dhoni from the 2013 Champions Trophy. The 37-year-old credited the legendary wicketkeeper-batter for instilling self-belief among his teammates. He further commended him for his heightened game awareness in predicting a rain-shortened game against England in the tournament final.

Ishant also compared Dhoni and Virat Kohli’s India captaincy while sharing their unique on-field tactics. The speedster revealed that Dhoni was a flexible skipper, but the latter mostly stuck with the plan. He told Raj Shamani’s YouTube channel:

“Mahi bhai looked sober, but he would give pieces [of advice] a lot in the field. There was a Champions Trophy match, and rain was taking place. Everyone thought the match would be washed out. He said that the match would happen, it would be short, and he doesn’t think that god will win us the match. God won’t do anything; you have to do things on your own. He would say that you believe in god but trust in yourself.”

He continued:

“Mahi bhai was a captain who loved doing things on the field; he liked doing that. The decision would be based on the game situation. It wasn’t with Virat; there was a basic plan, and then we would look at how it’s going.”

“On the field, we would look at those, but Mahi bhai wasn’t focused much on the meetings. He would play cricket that way, and nobody would understand the meeting. His strategy was simple: you would learn only if you made mistakes. He would say that if you make a mistake and then how long you take to repeat the same mistakes, that’s consistency for you,” Ishant added.

Ishant Sharma returned with figures of 2/36 as the Men in Blue beat England by five runs to clinch the 2013 Champions Trophy title. The pacer bagged two wickets and conceded only four runs in the penultimate over to dramatically turn things around in India's favor. Later, Ravichandran Ashwin defended 15 runs off the last over of the 20-over contest.

Watch from 57:41 onwards

“You learn a lot” – Ishant Sharma shares his off-the-field lessons from MS Dhoni

While calling MS Dhoni a big brother, Ishant Sharma also expressed his gratitude for learning life lessons from the legendary player. He said in the same video:

“Everyone has seen Mahi bhai as a big brother. We didn’t just learn to play the game, but we learned that we need to play the game and do well, and at the same time, there shouldn’t be a senior-junior [stuff] in the team. How to live life? How to interact with someone else? You learn a lot of life skills from Mahi bhai.”

Ishant Sharma played the majority of his career under Dhoni and Kohli. With 311 scalps in 105 Tests, he is one of the leading wicket-takers for India in the red-ball format. He has also bagged 115 scalps in 80 ODIs. The senior pacer last represented GT in the IPL 2025 season, picking up four wickets in seven games.