Venkatesh Iyer has never been shy about the people who helped him. He is a great oracle and loves to put forward his insights and what he has learnt from the game so far. Even after KKR released him this month, the all-rounder sounds as grounded as he did when nobody outside Madhya Pradesh cricket circles knew his name.

Asked to pick his all-time IPL XI, he didn’t hesitate while handing the captaincy to MS Dhoni, the same man who gave him one of the most important dressing-room lessons of his career.

MS Dhoni’s lesson to Venkatesh Iyer

Long before he was picking Dhoni to lead an all-time side, Venkatesh was getting a reality check from him. When their paths crossed, Dhoni gave him a warning that only a player who has seen the full circus could deliver.

Attention, noise, social media buzz, endless praise all of it would come fast, Dhoni said, and most of it was designed to hijack the mind rather than help the game. Venkatesh has repeated that message often because it hit him at the right time. It helped him stay intact through highs, lows and now a sort of an expected release after a Rs 23.75 crore tenure with KKR.

“I think the first time I met MS, he spoke to me about a lot of things that will come to you now because you have done well in 2-3 games. A lot of blitz will come to you. So many people will want to talk to you. You will get a lot of attention, a lot of social media buzz, everything like that. It is very important to decipher that and your game. Sometimes, that takes over the game. So, that advice was very important for me. He told me to keep my eyes, ears and mind open. The more you learn, the more you will be able to enjoy the game and learn from it as well,” Venkatesh said while speaking to CrickTracker.

Not too long ago, Venkatesh was little more than a trial run for KKR midway through IPL 2021. Fantastically, he helped KKR reach till the finals. From that moment to the final against Dhoni’s CSK, he rose quickly and he made his India debut soon. His overall record still shows how valuable he has been: 1468 runs from 62 matches at a strike rate of 137, a hundred, twelve fifties. While KKR hasn’t used his bowling but Venkatesh was long ago touted as the next big pace bowling all-rounder.

Venkatesh Iyer’s All-Time T20 XI

Virender Sehwag, Abhishek Sharma, AB De Villiers, Suresh Raina, Ben Stokes, Hardik Pandya, MS Dhoni (c&wk), Rashid Khan, Sunil Narine, Lasith Malinga, Jasprit Bumrah

12th Man: Matthew Hayden