MS Dhoni deserves more credit for his contributions to Indian cricket

MS Dhoni

Captain Cool. Best Ever Finisher. Helicopter Shot. The Man with the Midas touch. Humble. Best Ever Captain. World Cup T20 2007. World Cup 2011. Champions Trophy 2013.

Well, these are just some of the things that would come to your mind if you were a fan of the current Indian captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

While if you are a hater then your first thought would be along these lines; Ganguly was better, Dhoni is biased, Srini’s boy, conflict of interest etc.

But everyone has to agree that he is the best boss in the world. There are lots of people involved in the making of a national team like the selectors, the coaches, physios and the management staff. But as soon as the play starts, the captain becomes the real boss. He is the one who has to come up with Plan B when Plan A stops working, he is the one who has to shoulder all the blame for the loss while the glory of a win is shared by all.

Backing his players

Dhoni has done this and much more. The most recent example of it is the way he has handled the Jadeja-Anderson spat. Right from the time the complaint was lodged to the time Anderson was found ‘not guilty’, the Indian skipper has stood behind hs all-rounder like a rock. In his own words, “if one of my players gets fined and if he’s within the boundary lines, I will definitely go and defend him. But if he crosses that line, I won’t come and he will go alone and face the consequences.” And you know Dhoni doesn’t back any player unnecessarily, Sreesanth would vouch for that.

When he is not defending his players off field he is busy giving them chances on-field. No captain in the world would have given a second chance to Pankaj Singh after the disaster at Southampton where Pankaj got into the record books for all the wrong reasons. But Dhoni knew that one match doesn’t undermine the fact that the Rajasthan pacer is a good bowler albeit a bit unlucky.

And this is not the first time Dhoni has done this. Tossing the bowl to Joginder Sharma in the final over of the final of the T20 World Cup 2007, getting Ishant Sharma to bowl out England with relentless short bowling at Lord’s are the marks of the captain who trusts in the abilities of his players.

Sometimes, he does end up giving one chance too many to some players but the gamble almost always pays off. As someone on Twitter once quipped ‘I trust Dhoni’s luck more than mine’.

Leading by example

He is the kind of person who leads by example. During the Sydney Test in 2012, he chose to bat first on winning the toss. But his plan backfired when the team got all out for 191 and he was the only player not out with the score of 57. It must have been déjà vu for him when at Old Trafford on Thursday, half of the team was back in the pavilion for 62 runs and it was left up to him to give India a modest score. He stayed at crease for 200 minutes making a dogged 71. It has often been said he has no technique but at crunch situations he has fared better than those with ‘airtight’ techniques.

In limited overs cricket, the legend of the Ranchi-born wicket keeper-batsman is such that no target in unachievable until the time Dhoni is not out. It is almost as if he can accelerate his innings at his own will. His match-winning knock of 91 in the World Cup final, his 183* against Sri Lanka are examples of his dominance in ODIs.

But his best quality has to be his humility. How many times have we seen him leading the team to a major victory, accepting the trophy on the team’s behalf and then fading into the background? It happened in 2007, in 2011 and most recently in 2013.

Fight with the bat

Yes, he hasn’t scored any centuries outside Asia in Tests but he fights for every run he scores. He fights it out along with the tail when half of the team is back in the pavilion.

Yes, his captaincy is defensive at times and it took us 3 years to win a match overseas but it was he who took us to the No. 1 ranking in the longest format of the game.

You could argue that Ganguly was better, but you cannot deny that Dhoni has the illustrious trophies to back him.

Whenever he decides to call it a day he will always be remembered as the captain who helped India’s transition from the Fab Five to the young India that it has become today. And to say that he did it with élan would not be wrong.