4 min readMar 23, 2026 07:59 PM IST
Afghanistan wicketkeeper-batter Rahmanullah Gurbaz says MS Dhoni is the reason he became a cricketer — and that he still gets nervous when he meets the Chennai Super Kings legend. Gurbaz also spoke about the human cost of Afghanistan’s 2022 Asia Cup defeat to Pakistan, saying fans took their own lives after the loss.
“My idol since childhood has been MS Dhoni,” he said in an interview with Shubhankar Mishra’s YouTube channel. “I started cricket because of Dhoni. I became a wicketkeeper because of Dhoni.”
Even after years of playing alongside the world’s best, Gurbaz said Dhoni still has a unique effect on him. “With every player in the world I have met, I feel nothing. But when I am talking to MS Dhoni — I still feel pressure. He is a very good person. Every time, he calls me himself: come, let’s talk.”
His dream, he added, is to one day play for Chennai Super Kings. “Always my dream team — only because of him. I started cricket because of Dhoni. I became a wicketkeeper because of Dhoni.”
Gurbaz then turned to the darkest chapter in recent Afghan cricket — the 2022 Asia Cup defeat to Pakistan, when Naseem Shah hit two sixes in the final over to snatch victory away from Afghanistan.
“I myself saw how many people were there, how many people cried,” he said. “On roads, in homes, people died. Suicides happened here because of that match. We are very emotional people and so of course we also feel hurt — we are also human beings. We play for these people.”
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He said that defeat still haunts him. “That match was a won match. We were so close. And then we lost it. When I walk into Sharjah stadium now, that match still comes into my mind. We didn’t bat well but we made a great comeback with the ball.”
On the other side of that pain sits Afghanistan’s win over Pakistan at the 2023 ODI World Cup in India — which Gurbaz called the greatest moment in his team’s history.
“For our people, it was like a new Eid,” he said. “Someone from our cricket board told me — people still celebrate that day.”
Gurbaz, who has played for Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL — winning the title with them in 2024 — said Indian fans have shown him a warmth he has found nowhere else in the world.
“Everywhere I say it — India is my second home, for sure,” he said. “The love I get from Indian people, I don’t think I get that much support from anywhere else. There is no doubt that in India, our team and our players get a lot of respect.”
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In IPL he goes by the nickname Jaani, coined by his close friend and KKR teammate Rinku Singh. “Rinku is my Jaani,” Gurbaz said, laughing. “He is a very good friend of mine. Even now, every two or three days we do a video call.”
The reason behind Rinku naming him Jaani? Gurbaz explained it thus: “It was very difficult for me to remember all the international players’s names – be it Australia, South Africa or whoever. So I decided I am going to call everyone ‘Jaani’. No one will mind then! Only Rinku knows why I started calling everyone that, and so he named me ‘Jaani’!”
