Shisha, Football, and an Open Door: The Off-Field Dhoni That CSK Teammates Know

Most cricketer interviews follow a script. Talk about the team, mention the hard work, say something diplomatic about the opposition, and leave. Sam Billings apparently didn't get that memo.

The English wicketkeeper-batter, who played for Chennai Super Kings in 2018 and 2019, recently appeared on The Overlap Cricket podcast and proceeded to share the kind of details about MS Dhoni that make PR managers reach for their phones. Not scandalous — just genuinely interesting. The kind of stuff you'd hear from a friend after three coffees, not from a carefully managed media appearance.

What emerged was a portrait of Dhoni that's far more layered than the composed, ice-cold finisher the cameras show. A man with peculiar rituals, strong football opinions, and a hotel room that functions like an unofficial team lounge.

The headline-grabber was Billings casually mentioning that Dhoni has a dedicated person in his entourage whose primary job is to manage his shisha. Not a bodyguard. Not a manager. A shisha attendant.

According to Billings, left-arm pacer Khaleel Ahmed — who's been with CSK since 2025 — has taken on the unofficial role of Dhoni's hookah partner. Billings described the setup with the kind of amused bewilderment that only a British cricketer experiencing Indian IPL culture for the first time would have.

This isn't entirely new territory for Dhoni watchers. The former India captain has never hidden his fondness for hookah sessions. But having someone specifically associated with maintaining the setup? That's the level of detail that makes you realize IPL dressing rooms operate on an entirely different frequency than county cricket.

Perhaps the more revealing detail came not from Billings alone but was confirmed by another CSK alumni — Michael Hussey, who appeared on the same podcast.

Hussey described Dhoni's hotel room during IPL seasons as essentially a 24-hour drop-in center. Players could walk in at any time — no appointment, no awkward texting to ask if it was okay. They'd sit around, talk cricket, share a hookah, and just exist in the presence of someone who's seen it all.

For context, this is unusual. Most international captains maintain boundaries between personal and professional space. Dhoni apparently erased that line entirely. It's a leadership style that doesn't show up in captaincy stats but probably explains why CSK's dressing room culture has been so famously tight-knit across 17 seasons.

The other anecdote that caught attention: Dhoni is a Manchester United fan. Billings, being English, naturally gravitated toward this detail. The two apparently watched several football matches together during IPL seasons — not in a bar or a common area, but in Dhoni's hotel room.

The reason is straightforward. Dhoni can't exactly walk downstairs to the hotel bar and watch a match like a normal person. The man is arguably the most recognizable cricketer on the planet in India. Going "downstairs" would require a security detail and would end with 400 selfie requests before the first whistle.

So instead, the football comes to him. And apparently, so do the teammates. There's something oddly endearing about the mental image of MS Dhoni — World Cup winner, IPL legend, helicopter shot inventor — sitting in a hotel room watching Manchester United with a shisha pipe and a rotating cast of CSK players wandering in and out.

Billings used the word "cool" to describe Dhoni multiple times during the podcast. Not in the way people casually throw the word around, but with the emphasis of someone who means it quite specifically. In a sport filled with people who think they're cool, Billings was making the distinction that Dhoni is genuinely, effortlessly so.

He also pointed to the contrast between Dhoni's level of fame and his demeanor — noting that most people with that kind of stardom develop an edge, a guard, a distance. Dhoni apparently hasn't. Or at least, hasn't with his teammates.

Whether that extends to his captaincy is a different question. Dhoni's calmness under pressure is well documented. But there's a difference between being calm in a chase and being calm in a hotel room at 11 PM when a nervous debutant walks in wanting to talk about his grip. Both require composure. One of them requires something closer to genuine warmth.

All of this comes with a ticking clock. Dhoni turns 44 in July. IPL 2026 might be his last season — a sentence that's been written every year since 2021, and yet here we are. CSK retained him. He hasn't announced retirement. He's listed in the squad.

But the squad looks different this time. Jadeja — Dhoni's closest on-field partner for 12 years — was traded to Rajasthan Royals. Suresh Raina is long gone. Faf du Plessis moved on. The CSK that Dhoni built is slowly being replaced by a CSK that exists after Dhoni.

The hotel room with the open door and the shisha and the Manchester United matches will still be there. The question is whether the man inside it will be wearing yellow next March. Nobody knows. Probably not even Dhoni.

What we do know: when CSK take the field against Rajasthan Royals on March 30 in Guwahati, there's a decent chance Dhoni will walk out to bat. And 50,000 people will lose their minds. Because whatever the stats say about his strike rate or his fitness or his age — the man in the hotel room with the open door still has something that analytics can't measure.

He's still, quite simply, cool.