M.S. Dhoni Who?

I grew up during the greatest era of Indian cricket. As a kid, I remember hearing about (cable T.V that used to broadcast cricket matches, came much later in my life, hence I cannot say seeing) exploits of Sachin Tendulkar. I did get a chance to watch the highlight or even watch him play live on T.V in one of the grocery stores near my home. My only question to my friends if I missed the match, the next day was, Sachin ne kitna mara? (How many runs did Sachin score?). That is all that mattered. Sachin Tendulkar carried the entire Indian team on his shoulder. Sure there were other great batsmen, bowler, and fielder, but no one commanded the game as Sachin did. Whatever has been said or written, is and will never be enough to capture the greatness of Sachin Tendulkar. The free air national channel used to broadcast test matches and that is how of I came to know about another great batsman, Rahul Dravid. Rahul Dravid is known for his extraordinary patience during the critical juncture of a match. Rahul Dravid is an epitome of discipline, determination, grit, and class. I remember countless matches where Rahul Dravid walked in during the critical stage of the match and took Indian team to winning side. No matter how tough the situation is, Rahul Dravid took his precise stance, sweat dripping down from his nose and forehead, tap the bat with determination, wait for the bowler to deliver the ball and execute a textbook shot. V.V.S Laxman was another great batsman, known for his timing and wrist work while playing shots. The 376 run partnership against Australia between Rahul Dravid and V.V.S Laxman went in the cricketing history as one of the greatest batting performances.  

In midst of this riots of class, timing, perfection, and elegance, enter Mahendra Singh Dhoni. With his long colored hair, unusual stance and unorthodox shots made him look like an imposter in between these great batsmen. That was the time when Indian team was looking for a permanent wicketkeeper and experimented with a few of them and M.S Dhoni being one of them. He was supposed to fill in for Rahul Dravid, like I mentioned earlier, an exemplary batsman and also a great wicketkeeper the job he carried out with great aplomb. With so many experimentations happening with this position, I assumed Dhoni will also be one of the experiments and would vanish soon. He played well against Sri Lanka scoring his career’s highest run. Later on, he was made the captain of India's T-20 cricket team which went on win maiden T-20 world cup. I was not a fan of T-20 matches and strongly believed performance in that format, hardly reflects player's potential.

M.S Dhoni made a steady rise in Indian cricketing team, scoring the match winning runs, taking crucial wickets behind the wicket. Dhoni apart from his cool-headed approach during the critical stage of a match is also known for his humble background. Belonging to a middle-class family in India indulging in sports to make a career out of it is usually frowned upon, Dhoni took Indian team to a different level. Under his captaincy, India won all the three major ICC trophies, T-20 world cup, one-day world cup (and when I say its world cup, the matches are really played between different nations to win it, unlike Super bowl), Indian team ranked number one among all test match playing nations. Under Dhoni’s captaincy, India became a match-winning team, not the one that used to struggle to win or try desperately to stop the opposition from winning, rather an imposing and dominating team which made opposition to sweat hard to score a run or to take a wicket. Dhoni believed in his instinct at a critical stage of the match and taking decisions based on clear understanding of the match and the situation.  Dhoni’s contribution to Indian cricket is and will remain unparalleled for years to come. Now that he has retired from test cricket and relegated himself from captaincy, his role is more that of a guru who is passing on his knowledge and wisdom to the current captain. Like any mortal, he had his bad patch, where he struggled to score run at a required rate, but he as always remained sharp behind the wickets. But, we have critics in India, who are not professional, they have hardly contributed anything to Indian cricket team, they do not know whether or not they will get a next (paid) interview, but they assume that they know when a great batsman/ bowler should retire. Like any other great player Dhoni is being scrutinized by the “critics”. Some people asking for his retirement with a great conviction. These people fail to realize that Dhoni’s best performance is based on his best decision-making skills and wouldn’t he know when to decide to hang up his boots? There are debates going in which people are weighing in their opinion that is not even worthy of a rupee. This entire debate surrounding the retirement of Dhoni or criticism of form, made me realize the simplicity of Dhoni’s captaincy. It made me realize some people they are so good at their job; it makes people think that the job is easy. That anybody could fill in their shoe. It makes them take the greatness of a player for granted. It makes them put the person on a surgical table and try to dissect the performance that is not even easy to comprehend, forget about dismissing it. And like any great player, Dhoni is also going through the phase of unsolicited criticism. The day when he will retire, I am sure there will be a page full of ode dedicated to him from the same lesser known player, critics, and media itself.

I wanted to write this article about Dhoni, when he still in the game, when he still sure about his performance, for if he had an even tiny bit of doubt he would have not waited. But for most importantly, I wanted to express my admiration for him when he is playing for the team when he is being criticized. I did not want to write this article after his retirement, out of impulse, out of outburst of an emotion which I am sure everyone will have when he announces his retirement. Dhoni did not shatter records like Sachin, nor did he made prolific record like him, Dhoni did not time have temperament of Dravid, nor his shot selection, Dhoni did not have wrist movement and leg-work of V.V.S Laxman, but Dhoni had determination, ability to the read the game, he knew the importance of being cool-headed for making critical decision. Dhoni is the common man of Indian cricket team who is extraordinarily good at his job. Dhoni will remain an inspiration for generations to come, for them it will be hard to believe that one man took his to team to the pinnacle of success, but we will be there to tell them that it is true, that he did win all those tournaments and we watched it happening, at our home, at a grocery store, through the glass window of a T.V. showroom, listened intently over the radio and that we were in awe too!