Why MS Dhoni did not allow his players to use 'Maa-Behen ki Gaali' while sledging

Mumbai: Mahendra Singh Dhoni has a knack of doing things in his own style. Captain Cool is known to find solutions with ease whatever the circumstances may be. The veteran cricketer’s calm demeanour has rubbed off other Team India players that have seen them perform best even in pressure-cooker situations.

However, at times, the game of cricket gets intense and players lose their temper. With tensions and expectations soaring, they get personal and cross the line unexpectedly. But Dhoni feels that players should never swear involving mothers, sisters on the pitch and that overt displays of aggression affects oneself.

"'Goli maarta hai apne style mein (He shoots in his own style.) He says the problem is if I allow my boys to give maa-behen ki gaali (swear words involving someone's mother or sister); it's they and not the one being subjected to it who'll feel the pinch of what they've done for the rest of the day'. He doesn't believe in overt displays of aggression. He believes that if you want to hurt them, do it in your style, not in their way. If they believe in swearing, you don't need to do it," Indian Express' Bharat Sundaresan wrote in his book The Dhoni Touch.

The wicket-keeper batsman, who took over the captaincy reins in 2007, always believed in this mantra when it came to sledging players. He never held back his own players but made sure they did not cuss.

"Incidentally, seven years and two tours later, Dhoni hadn't changed his opinion on the matter. In the 2014-15 Test series in Australia, which was riddled with incidents of players like Virat Kohli, David Warner and Brad Haddin being at each other's throats, Dhoni spoke about how he never held his players back from a confrontation, but only asked them never to get personal. It'd been his opinion throughout. Dhoni wasn't just good at defusing tetchy situations with the opposing team. He could, at times, put his own teammates at ease in a tense scenario," the book reads.

The 37-year-old has come under fire recently after his poor displays with the bat in the three-match ODI series against England which the Men in Blue lost by 2-1.