In all likelihood, MS Dhoni has played his last match for the country and is coming to terms with his ‘new normal’   

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, along with his daughter Ziva was seen playing fetch with their dog Sam, as Sakshi Dhoni went Live on Instagram to give fans a glimpse of the Chennai Super Kings skipper.

In another video, MS Dhoni is seen enjoying a bike ride with daughter Ziva sitting behind him. Sakshi Dhoni's commentary while shooting the video - ‘Two children are playing here….an older child and a younger child’ evoked a lot of reactions from fans on social media.

We get so used to see our sporting heroes during live sporting action on the field of play that such images are difficult even to be visualized when they are in the peak of their careers. India’s most successful captain MS Dhoni is yet to formally announce his retirement. But, these visuals in the times of the lockdown are gentle reminders of the process leading to the fading of one of our greatest legends from the cricketing scene.

After the infamous run-out leading to India’s exit from the World Cup 2019, MS Dhoni has not played international cricket. In fact, in all likelihood, one of the greatest finishers the game has ever seen has finished his share of international matches for the country. But why is he not announcing the same in so many words?

Till our generation is walking on this beautiful planet and perhaps, through storytelling many generations to come will not be able easily to forget commentator Ravi Shastri’s words –‘Dhoni finishes off in style, India lifts the World Cup after 28 years’. Ironically, the same sporting superhero was unable to finish off his international career in a similar style, in the manner he would have liked.

The conventional wisdom would have been MS Dhoni quitting from international cricket the very evening of the World Cup semifinals match when India lost to New Zealand. Many of the cricketers, who played before him and will play after, will think along those lines. But, MS Dhoni has not been a conventional cricketer. Has there been a single thing in his life and career which could be called conventional?

Much before he played for India, the conventionalists had numerous questions for him? How can anyone from Jharkhand make it to the national team? You can hardly remember a name from Jharkhand or for that matter from erstwhile Bihar making to the Indian team? It’s fine that he has got big-hitting abilities, but what about his unconventional technique, both before and behind the wicket?

In a team where Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh were perceived as leaders in waiting, who would have thought of MS Dhoni, who didn't even have the experience of leading the first-class team, being the captain of the Indian cricket team. And, from there, he goes on to become the most successful captain ever of the Indian team. Even his alliance with Chennai Super King in the Indian Premier League was thought to be unnatural and unconventional when it all started.

However, his relationship with the franchise and its huge fan base went on to become as rock-solid as the popularity of the Indian Premier League itself. When MS Dhoni decided to retire from captaincy and Test cricket as a whole in the middle of an overseas Test series in Australia, the conventionalists were taken aback. How can he do this? Naturally, the player, who throughout his career refused to follow the script of the conventionalists, will not like to exit as per the routes defined by them?

So what are MS Dhoni's plans from here?

Will MS Dhoni return?

Everyone who matters in Indian cricket has given their opinion on the topic of MS Dhoni's retirement. The chief selectors had to give an answer to the question whenever asked for. The head coach of the Indian team has answered the question in his own manner and style. Many of the players who shared dressing rooms with him and were taken aback with his phenomenal rise have spoken on the matter.

Most of the members of the present Indian team, who adore and admire him like anything are yet to come to terms conclusively with his future plans. Perhaps, the current Indian captain Virat Kohli may have some idea. However, one shouldn't be surprised if MS Dhoni has not shared his immediate plans in detail with his successor as well.

And, the type of understanding which Kohli has with his former captain, he would have given him that space. It is now almost a year since MS Dhoni has returned from England after participating in the World Cup 2019. And yet, he has not uttered even a sentence about this. That is MS Dhoni for you.

So what should be assumed from the same? In order to understand this, one needs to delve a bit into the character of one of the most remarkable legends of our times. More than titles, victories and his innings for the winning cause, what’s the biggest legacy of MS Dhoni?

India’s one of the most impactful and stylish test players, VVS Laxman, has been paying rich tributes to his former teammates these days. Laxman, in a similar vein, even tweeted about MS Dhoni.

This can be further understood, when we go through what former India captain and batting legend, Rahul Dravid had to say on MS Dhoni being so successful finisher in limited-overs cricket. During an interaction with cricketer-tuned-commentator Sanjay Manjerekar, Dravid said, “You always got the feeling that he is doing something really important. But he is playing like results do not really matter to him. Not an easy situation to get in. You need to have that, or you need to train it. I potentially didn’t have that. The consequences mattered to me deeply. It will be really interesting to ask whether something like this comes naturally to him or something that he has potentially worked on. That’s what great finishers do. They are able to get themselves in that frame of mind".

That two of India’s greatest thinking cricketers who played with him spoke so highly of MS Dhoni gives us a peek into the character of the CSK skipper. And, perhaps, it provides an answer to MS Dhoni’s approach to his retirement also. Sportspersons approach crunch situations in two ways. The first approach is to treat the same as life and death. Historically, more often than not, this was the approach of the Indian team in the Pre-MS Dhoni era.

This is the approach, with which the Pakistan team takes their matches versus their arch-rivals India, in the different World Cups. In this approach, one tends to take too much pressure on them and thus has got the tendency of losing the crucial moments in the process. The second approach is to take the crucial moments as sports and not a matter of life and death. In this situation, one is able to concentrate on the situation and not the eventual result. There are much higher probabilities of the favourable result following this approach. MS Dhoni is the biggest proponent of this approach in India’s sporting history.

Is this something in built in him or is this something he has worked upon? Does the answer lie in the ecosystem from where he has come from?

MS Dhoni had got no cricketing background. In the formative phase of his career, he represented teams which had no legacy to live for and had no burden of expectations? In most of the matches, the success or defeat of his team was dependent on his own individual performance. So, the role of the finisher was not a rarity but the way of his life for him.

Since there was hardly any influence of tall cricketing predecessors or structured academies in his career, he devised his own mechanism to confront and deal with such a situation. If we meticulously follow his innings, one finds the approach he devised was akin to gorilla tactics.

Try to be there in the war as far as possible and wait for your chance to hit hard. MS Dhoni repeated this strategy so many times in his career that sub-consciously it became an inseparable part of his habit. And, it was this habit which won many matches for the country.

However, how is all this linked to MS Dhoni's retirement plans?

Is MS Dhoni done?

In all probability, MS Dhoni would have liked to time his retirement from international cricket, with the 2019 World Cup victory in England. The fact that he was the part of the team which had the wherewithal to accomplish this would have fuelled this thought further. The destiny brought him and his team just a few steps away from the target.

In fact, the team would have been just a step away from being the world cup champion for the third time, if he would have finished in style that evening. After all, he has done this as a matter of habit so often in his career. But this was not to be. The champion in him could not digest this. He gave himself time being away from cricket.

But, then he realized that this is not the manner in which he wants to fade away. True to his nature, he wanted to be in the cricketing frame for as long and as he can and then give another shot in the Indian Premier League? Who knows, when a similar crucial moment comes in IPL this time, he could lead his side to victory for one last time?

There have been different ways in which India’s cricketing icons has quit the sport. We had the great Sunil Gavaskar who retired saying- ‘Retire when people ask ‘why’ and not ‘why not’? We had the great Mohinder Amarnath who was the saga of endless comebacks. We had Kapil Dev and Sachin Tendulkar, who perhaps stretched their retirements a bit further, but who got their farewell matches which they so much deserved.

In fact, the farewell speech of India’s greatest cricketing icons will enthuse the generations to come. We had Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan and Yuvraj Singh, who were all the impactful legends, but who had to retire without a farewell match. In the era, when finest of the cricketers have to strike a fine balance between three forms of cricket, this is to be the likely trend in the future.

MS Dhoni understands this much better than most of us. Based on this, most of the cricketers who knew MS Dhoni were gradually getting convinced that India’s one of the most thought-provoking leaders in the recent times will not have T20 Cricket World Cup in Australia in his mind. He did not say the same in so many words as true to his nature; he never felt the need to say so.

Retirement is not an easy word for any professional sportsperson. MS Dhoni is no different. Retiring and transitioning from something that took so much sweat, sacrifice and time and involves emotional, mental and physical dedication often leads to the sense of loss. One has to go through various phases of relief, sadness, confusion and anxiety in the process.

One has to get used to having all this free time. Of spending time with the family and so many other things which one missed for so many years? However, soon the novelty of that freedom starts wearing off and one starts thinking of doing something for the long term. Most of the sportspersons take their time to figure out what else one is passionate about.

One takes time to settle into new routines, find new hobbies and support system and accept all these as the new normal. MS Dhoni, in all likelihood, has played his last international match. He would certainly like to play this edition and if all goes well, one more edition of the IPL for his franchise.

Meanwhile, his videos with his daughter Ziva and wife Sakshi in his farmhouse call for a substantive caption. It may be- ‘MS Dhoni trying to come in terms with the new normal’.