Most cricketers hand their bat to a specialist. MS Dhoni picked up an electric sander and did it himself.
On 13 March 2026, Chennai Super Kings shared a video on their official social media that stopped fans mid-scroll. In the clip, the 44-year-old is seen hunched over a workbench at the CSK training facility, carefully using an electric sander to fine-tune his bat ahead of the upcoming IPL season. No fuss. No team of equipment experts. Just Dhoni, his tools, and his bat — the way he has always preferred things.
CSK captioned the post simply: “MaSter of the craft.” Fans, predictably, lost their minds. Cricket journalist Mufaddal Vohra shared the clip with the caption “Thala shaping up his gadget ahead of the IPL,” and within hours it had spread across every platform. The phrase “Dhoni turns carpenter” trended, which tells you something about how much people enjoy watching this man do anything at all.
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But strip away the viral moment and there is something genuinely telling about what the video shows. Dhoni has always had an unusually hands-on relationship with his equipment. He uses a bat weighing 1,230 grams — lighter than the 1,250-1,300 gram willow he favoured in earlier seasons — and has had them custom-made to his specifications by his long-time sponsor Sareen Sports Industries, who confirmed the same weight bats were ordered again for IPL 2026. He trains in the afternoon specifically to prepare for the heat and humidity he will face at the MA Chidambaram Stadium. He has overhauled his pre-season routine entirely, beginning sessions against spinners in September 2025 before gradually moving to facing fast bowlers. At 44, with a knee that has been operated on and carefully managed for years, every detail matters.
That is who Dhoni has always been. The helicopter shot gets the headlines, but the preparation is what makes the helicopter shot possible. Former CSK head coach Stephen Fleming summed it up plainly when asked about Dhoni’s fitness: “His body is what it is. His knees aren’t what they used to be. But he can gauge on the day what he can give us.” That measured honesty from someone who knows him better than most is itself a kind of tribute — not to the myth, but to the man who shows up, fixes his own bat, and gets on with it.
There is a broader story here too. IPL 2026 is widely expected to be Dhoni’s final season. The franchise has already brought in Sanju Samson to plan for life after him behind the stumps. The crowd at Chepauk will turn up for matches with the awareness that every time he walks out, it could be one of the last times. And yet the man himself, on 13 March, was not contemplating finality. He was sanding a bat.
That, more than anything, is what the video captured. Not nostalgia. Not farewell. Just Dhoni being Dhoni — meticulous, unhurried, and entirely unconcerned with the noise around him.