"The three mistakes of my life" - Dhoni's path to greatness

Everyone anticipated the in-form batsman Yuvraj Singh to come in next. Yuvi had a wonderful run in the tournament and his match winning half century against Australia during a difficult chase in the quarterfinal meant that he had the talent and the temperament for the chase. This is when Dhoni made the second mistake of his life; he promoted himself up the order and walked in at No: 5.

Dhoni had a very ordinary tournament as a batsman until then, but he felt he was better equipped to negate the spin wizard Muralitharan. Coming from a captain who showed that he gave more preference to current form than experience in the last World Cup, this decision was very surprising.

But what transpired in the next hour and a half meant that this was yet another master stroke from Dhoni as he went on to complete a historic chase for India, scoring an unbeaten 91 and winning the trophy of glory for India after 28 years. Dhoni had just shown us that he was someone who considered adaptability of a player to the conditions than just his current form alone.

June 23, 2013, Edgbaston

It was the final of the last edition of the ICC Champions Trophy. Fittingly, the World Champions – Team India – were taking on the home side England.

India had recovered from an early stutter to put up a fighting total of 129 in 20 overs in a rain affected final which was reduced to 20 overs per side.

After a good opening spell against the English top order, Team India looked very much in the game. A resilient Bopara and Morgan then stitched together a useful partnership and threatened to take the game away from India. With the game again going to the final overs, Dhoni again had to make a tough choice of who would bowl the 18^th over of the match.

With only 28 runs to defend and the power play overs up next, India needed to break this partnership very badly. Both Umesh and Bhuvaneshwar had done well in their spells and looked like the obvious choices. This is when Dhoni made the third mistake of his life; he decided to go with an erratic Ishant Sharma.

By now the whole world was accustomed to Dhoni’s bizarre decisions during crucial situations in the match. But more often than not, he had come out in flying colors. However, this decision seemed like clear suicide.

Ishant steamed in and was hit by Morgan for a boundary. It looked like this over would seal the match and ironically enough it did. But not exactly as many would have thought, as in the latter part of the over Ishant came back strongly and dismissed both Morgan and Bopara to give India the advantage, and the rest is history.

Dhoni had once again baffled everyone. Ishant was wayward and was struggling to adapt to the pitch unlike his peers, but Dhoni showed faith in his experienced campaigner. Thus, Dhoni had shown us that an ideal captain should always look to play the situation.

On another day, Misbah would have hit Jogi over his head for another six and sealed the deal for Pakistan, Muralitharan would have foxed Dhoni with a wrong one around the wicket to disturb the timber as he had done so in the past and Ishant would have been smashed by Morgan and Bopara all over the park. All these moves would have looked like big mistakes that cost India its most prestigious trophies in the last 6 years.

Some may call it the “Midas touch”, while others might call it strategic brilliance. But the fact remains that Dhoni is the most successful Indian captain today, thanks to arguably the three mistakes of his life that turned out to be absolutely right!