Internet enjoys meme-fest after MS Dhoni receives ‘hookah’ dig from Irfan Pathan: ‘Hookah party gave us 2013 CT’

Irfan Pathan fanned the flames of his contentious relationship with MS Dhoni yet again as he brought his own removal from the Indian team under Dhoni’s captaincy back into the spotlight. The left-handed all-rounder spoke about how there was a lack of communication when it came to him being dropped, and during this interview with SportsTak, also seemingly alleged that Dhoni used to be a hookah smoker and showed favouritism within the team to those who would smoke with him. MS Dhoni in action during IPL 2025 for CSK.(AP)

Pathan is known to have a touchy relationship with Dhoni given how his international career came to a close. However, he is not the first person to make this poke at Dhoni, with former Australian captain George Bailey also having stated in a 2018 interview that the great Indian wicketkeeper enjoyed sessions of smoking hookah alongside younger members of his international and IPL teams.

“Neither have I got a habit of going to rooms and setting up hookah, nor of asking for the same thing again and again,” Pathan had said in his interview. However, once the internet and social media picked up on the insinuation of Pathan’s comments, the responses were quick to come by in the form of memes as fans begin to reminisce on how good MS Dhoni’s teams of the 2010s were, and if it was only as hookah-setters that they earned those places.

After pictures and images had surfaced of Dhoni seemingly enjoying a hookah with some friends during a function in 2024, fans were also quick to return to an interview from 2018 in which former Australian captain George Bailey had reflected on how Dhoni would use it almost as a team-bonding exercise.

Having shared the CSK and then the Rising Pune Supergiants with Dhoni, Bailey reflected: "He likes smoking a bit of the sheesha or the hookah. So, he quite often would set that up in his room, and it was very much open-door policy. You would go in and quite often find a lot of younger players there. For India or a lot of other cricket teams, it can be hierarchical, but he certainly broke that down.”

While it seems unlikely that Dhoni would make big selection decisions based on the hookah, personal relationships and having a good understanding with captains has undoubtedly always been a part of cricket selection. Whether that is something that Irfan Pathan has grown to regret can only be inferred from his comments about the matter.

Click here to read article