'Dhoni sir knows' - Lovely Chaubey of women's lawn bowls team opens up on their experience of meeting MS Dhoni

The Indian women’s lawn bowls team has created history under the leadership of Lovely Chaubey  after reaching the finals of the event at the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham. They have secured a medal first time in the history of the sport at the CWG. The four-membered team including Lovely Chaubey, Rupa Rani, Tirkey Rani, and Nayanmoni Saikia outplayed the team New Zealand in the semi-finals.

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The Indian side won the match with a score line of 16-13 to make it to the finals of the competition. The four members of the Asian side also talked about their journey and the stops they have gone through in reaching this stage finally. Two members of the team, including skipper Lovely Chaubey Rupa Rani, hail from Ranchi so the discussion of MS Dhoni becomes quite obvious in their story.

Lovely opened up about the experience when they met the former legendary Indian captain, MS Dhoni, in their academy.

When he goes Dewri Mata temple, he comes to see us as well - Lovely Chaubey

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“Dhoni sir knows our coach in Ranchi and has come to see us at the greens twice over the years. We have a Dewri Mata temple close by, when he goes there, he comes to see us as well. We had a chat about the sport as well. He said whenever he is in Australia, he goes to play Lawn Bowls,” said Lovely while recalling the memories.

Later on, she also talked about the feeling they going through after a win in the semi-finals of the event.

“This is as big as the Olympics for us since lawn bowls are not part of the Summer Games. We lost the medal by one point four years ago but this time we have made up for that by making history. We hope this effort gives us some recognition,” she added later in conversation with PTI.

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“I got into Lawn Bowls in 2008 after leaving athletics. I won Rs 70000 in a national event and told myself I could continue with this,”  Lovely concluded.