MS Dhoni: A captain for posterity

How would you describe the journey of a starry-eyed youngster from a nondescript town to the top of the world?

Fairytales spun by tinsel town merchants pale in relative incongruity in relation to the travails and travels of MS Dhoni, who recently packed it in as a one-day skipper while handing it over to Virat Kohli in a low key and non-celebratory fashion – devoid of any teary farewell or an iota of pomp.

Such is the manner of the man, who won (plenty by the way) with humility and lost with dignity in a career spanning almost 13 years – nine of which were spent as a captain on the field and a leader off it.

His USP had been his own methods – devoid of frills or fancy – yet it was coated with gold standards in effective efficiency. It is quite impossible to capture his achievements by way of superlatives as it is rendered superfluous. In a cricket crazy country, where players and spectators love and thrive on emotion by wearing their heart on their sleeves, he was an alien, unfazed and cool headed with ice coursing through his veins.

To say he was unflappable would be to understate it. Early signs of his temperament were witnessed by yours truly during the course of a Deodhar Trophy game at Vizag versus East Zone in early 2003. My fellow contemporary SS Das of Odisha had picked Dhoni back then as someone to watch out for with respect to the power hitting. True to his word, the long -haired slogger with streaks of flamboyance lashed 70 odd in a lost cause. Incidentally, I had scored a hundred but I must admit, an unannounced and unheralded 22-year-old stole the show.

The next time he hit the headlines was during our ‘A’ tour to Nairobi in Kenya in August 2004. Picked as an all-rounder and promoted to an early batting slot, MSD hammered two hundreds versus Pakistan as the frazzled rivals ran for cover under such never-before-seen assault. Sixes, long and hard, rained from his powerful forearms and wrists. Shades of his speed between the wickets were also witnessed.

Incidentally, Gautam Gambhir had, like a prophet, reckoned that Dhoni would go places simply on account of his pyrotechnics and uncomplicated hitting style. How prophetic! In the years that have passed, we have all seen him grow and morph into a giant while learning the ropes but at no point in time abdicating his original individuality.

That, to me, has been the keys to his success, for as a batsman, keeper or skipper, he has allowed his big heart to rule and dictate with his intuitive gut feel. And of course his cool, calm, sagely head has followed his ticker.

The legend takes flight

A successful person never loses. He either wins or learns. Two innings of his, amidst plenty, stand out like a beacon.

One was his marauding and maiden Test match hundred versus Pakistan at Faisalabad in early 2006 against a raging and bristling Shoaib Akhtar, who had clocked stunning air speed to blunt the benign surface. Dhoni, in an astonishing innings of counter-attacking brilliance, caned and hooked the frazzled Pakistan attack off the radar with fast hands and powerful arms. And in the process, he grew leaps and bounds while silencing carping sceptics and assaulting their senses.

He had already announced to the wide world his exploits in the shorter formats – an explosive hundred at Vizag maiming Pakistan; a carnage at Jaipur in late 2005 while obliterating Murali and company with his missile like launches and peeling 183. All these innings of resplendent brilliance came in his first year.

To think that the aforementioned instances of blitzkrieg were proceeded by the ignominious first-ball duck in Bangladesh in December 2004 is unimaginable. A lesser mortal would have frozen in fear at the biggest stage and with cold feet, appear hassled. But not MSD. He backed his natural instincts, believed in his own methods and produced the goods with stunning regularity.

The purists may have cocked a snook at his "hockey player like hands" at the crease with awkward feet positions to boot, but he more than made up for his "technical poverty" with a typical sense of calm and an innate cricketing nous to grapple and grasp the situation with an uncluttered head.

He had no time for the coaching manual and wrote his own book as evidenced by his keeping skills. His game sense was exemplary and beneath the facade of flamboyance, there was an astute cricketing mind which ticked relentlessly to plot and plan various digs and victories from tough positions.

Trademark Dhoni

Another dig that caught my eye for its contrasting approach was in England in the summer of 2007. A cornered India salvaged an honourable draw to stay in the hunt in the series which they eventually won one-nil. The team owed the draw to Dhoni's pugnacious display. With just the tail for company, he pottered and prodded to a half-century, eked out priceless runs even as he consumed invaluable time by eschewing strokeplay and risks to win the reward of a draw.

Not many would have expected him to do so. Yet the bigger picture was not lost out on him as he dug deep. Seeds of a captain-in-the-making were (I guess) sown in the minds of the then "elder statesmen” like Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid. And it’s fair to say that Dhoni has learnt from both of them in matters of treating the twin imposters of success and defeat alike.

He was made captain in the inaugural T20 championship in South Africa, upon the culmination of the English tour and the collective wisdom of Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid was not wasted as they recommended his name.

The rest, as they say, is history. His penchant in going for his ‘feel good gut’ was evident even in his debut campaign as he marshalled the troops and affected stunning bowling changes – least of which was his option to bowl an unknown Joginder Sharma ahead of an experienced Harbhajan Singh in the potboiler of a final versus Pakistan.

A reality check

His rise to phenom-like stardom was not littered with roses as it was a tumultuous journey that he had to miserably endure. His two ducks versus Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in the 2007 World Cup coincided with India plummeting and crashing out. With this, Dhoni had a first taste of the unedifying feedback of the Indian fans and their emotional roller coaster. His name and brand built by them was tarred and tainted, as an irate India vented its anger upon its stars.

Those must have been trying times when he might have felt low and lonely. During caverns of self-introspection, an honest man survives. And it was a solidified and fortified Dhoni that emerged out of that hostile experience. Those testing times were like a panacea for the right man with the right attitude.The cruel sport with its built in vicissitudes steeled him up for greater glory. Soon enough, he understood that the honeymoon first season is not easy to replicate and longer a player plays this sport, the harsher the treatment it metes out.

Sport, after all, doesn’t build characters as much as it reveals them. His heroic comebacks are templates of his ‘gut spill’ and an insatiable ability to stay head and chin up in the moment, driven by process. Dhoni, always deep down, trusted that cricket teams bond and bind when viewed as a ‘work in progress’ and gave massive fillip and spaces for lesser endowed players to grow and express themselves.

(Video courtesy: T-Series YouTube channel)

He did not believe in chopping and changing. Nor did he give in to knee-jerk reactions or band-aid solutions. He built his side brick-by-brick, by handling the esteemed seniors with velvety gloves, picking their brains and treating the juniors with encouraging gestures and words.

He was never a great fan of gymnasiums and might have been a very late convert in these days of weight training and organised callisthenics. Barring a solitary tour to Sri Lanka in June 2008, he has not missed any in his thirteen years on the circuit.

A zen-like attribute

Dhoni was always calm and collected on the field

One could never ever decipher his inscrutable face, for even body language experts would have fallen woefully short in reading his non-verbals and the far-away look in his eyes. Dhoni played sport in a manner where his inner throbbing celebrations were amply masked by his outer silence.

A clenched fist or the Tarzan-like wild hysterical paroxysms of delight were not his choices for celebration. Instead, he sported a toothy grin at best while allowing himself to be lost in the moment. It was as if he never existed on the field of play. And to muster such a zen-like attribute in the midst of a charged sporting cauldron was simply unreal and surreal. Unless a man is so sure of his methods and plans, such a facade wears thin and grows hollow. Dhoni, however, was anything but that.

His stunning strike of Nuwan Kulasekara to win the World Cup in 2011 and bring home the bacon, with a meaty muscular blow, will forever be etched in the minds of many. That aside, other abiding and enduring memories of his stunning stints were the blurry energy that he brought to running between the wickets with "trunk like legs".

Then there was his clever nous behind the wickets with alert, nifty hands; the trademark statue-like face, betraying no emotions after his bowler has been cleaned up; his approach at the crease to orchestrate and unleash his arsenal on the hapless bowlers; his witty post-match press conferences where he had his head and chin up while never washing dirty laundry in public. And there is his almost shy, coy manner, in not garnering any glory for himself in a team sport.

The gnawing temptation to which lesser players succumb to during times of glory was religiously avoided by Dhoni. That, to me, is a shining cornerstone as he always laid emphasis on teamwork. Although he was hard on others, he was that much more hard on himself.

To me and to the teeming millions, he is the greatest Indian captain and his trophy cabinet, complete with all possible silverware would bear ample testimony.

Shades of the old Dhoni returned in that final over

By making himself available for the shorter formats, one fervently hopes that the lusty long hits of his youthful days resurface with refreshing freedom and cannon like ferocity as was seen in a rare burst of brilliance during last year’s IPL. He had smeared a young Axar Patel, plundering him with the alacrity adopted by robbers in a midnight heist. The maniacal madness transported us momentarily to halcyon days when Dhoni batted with gay abandon.

One also hopes the unshackled mantles of captaincy help the 35-year-old and the side achieve consistency as they embark on building a side for the future with the 2019 World Cup in mind. Whatever else happens, it is time to sing paeans of praise as I join the cricketing firmament in celebrating the life and times of Dhoni as a trailblazing pathfinder and a cool, cerebral skipper.

Way to go Dhoni!