Captain Cool. Thala. These are the epithets that have become synonymous with the shy man from Ranchi who has consciously stayed away from the spotlight on himself yet reveled and more so marveled in the biggest opportunities for his team in their conquest for cricketing hardware. This was the man that transformed his teams and elevated them, that too in a game, dominated by big city and metropolis lads and instilled a sense of belief as his teams went about their business of winning and bringing laurels and conquering peaks.
What made Dhoni great was not just the hardware that he brought back, the way he marshalled his troops to scale those pinnacles made him an all-time legend. Dhoni infused that belief in his motley crew that no game is over till the final horn is sounded and have umpteen instances when he brought the team back from the dead and there is a reason he is rated amongst the best finishers of the game, if not the best himself. Dhoni’s uncanny cool and composed approach to the problem and his ability to switch gears while activating his cranium calculator to compute the run rates and his superlative prowess to unleash his armory of powerful strokes when required meant no target was safe during his peak days and when Dhoni was at the crease, no opposing team could afford to let their guard down.
Dhoni enshrined Ranchi and Jharkhand on the cricketing map and not just that allowed the greater part of India to dream that not all is lost if you are not born and raised in the limelight of the large metros, you can still sit on one of the top 10 most coveted thrones in the country barring the top two, the PM and the President of the country. Dhoni has been one of the reasons why we see a large influx of smaller and mid-town boys donning the India jersey and once the door gets opened for them, they are able to make that their own. Dhoni wasn’t the first one from non-metros but he was definitely the most successful in recent memories who came from non glitterati.
Dhoni did not have it easy. There’s already been a biopic made on him so I am not even going to repeat what’s being said and glamorized on celluloid by much better looking people but what still made him special was how relentlessly he pursued and achieved the success and to date, he may be the only captain to have won both the T20 and ODI world cup, add to that his 10 trips to the IPL’s ultimate game, nine of them while wearing his beloved yellow jersey and the tenth one in Pune’s only successful trip to the final to fall inches short. Deeper look at his career and his life off the twenty-two yards have been a case study of sorts in how to be transcendental in not letting the success muddy your sanities and his conduct off the field and with cricketers both aspiring and legends and he has had people eating out of his hands. His knowledge of the sport and strategy has made people look at him in awe.
Dhoni has been a recluse or even a monk for a cricket crazy country like India where he has chased the greatest success but for the team, for the country and not to accumulate the individual accolades. He has not been basking in his team’s glory himself or flaunting his medals to the world. He has been serene and transcendental in his composure. Dhoni has also worked extremely hard and has been somewhat of a late bloomer in his career and did not arrive with the tag of the next best thing to sliced bread or such. Dhoni achieved his quiet success and that was gradual too. It is his diligent play at the beginning of his career won him fans but was not obvious it was for his runs or his manes which were long and free flowing and one of his country’s fiercest opponents Gen. Musharraf lauded him and coming from someone who not long before had led Kargil war for his country against India.
Dhoni’s success in Blue and Yellow jersey has made the World go Green with envy and India go green with prize money (Blue and yellow add up to green) but reading the interviews and comments by fellow cricketers who have been considering a dream to work for/with Dhoni and getting an opportunity to pick his brains speaks volumes about the reverence that his peers have for Dhoni and this includes not just newbies, the endless list of awed cricketers include the who’s who of the gentlemen’s game and some of them international legends in their own right.
What made Dhoni special was how he was cucumber cool in his approach. Rarely ever did someone see him getting flustered and compared to two other successful Indian captains Sourav Ganguly and Virat Kohli who were visually very emotive and in your face characters, Dhoni was more like Rahul Dravid but much more successful. Dhoni was somewhat like Mike Brearley but with a much larger pallet of skills on offer and if Mike was the master strategist, Dhoni was that plus a match winner himself. Dhoni’s batting skills itself, he has been particularly brutal on bowlers like Malinga who did not enjoy bowling to Dhoni.
Dhoni never would get flustered and his winning habits were motivating for the young Indian teams. His demeanor has been a case study of how overachievers conduct themselves and lesson in humility yet confidence, to be great in pressure situations while maintaining composure. What started with his first success beating the arch rivals Pakistan in the finale of inaugural T20 world cup, became a blueprint and he soon became the poster boy for India in white ball cricket. Accolades started flowing, hardware cabinet filling and medals started piling. Dhoni the leader embodied similar characteristics like Imran Khan and made some tough decisions and during the process, ruffled some heavyweight feathers in his team selection. One thing was certain, Dhoni proved he meant business and man from Ranchi was not to make friends and was here to win.
Dhoni was cut from a different cloth and has preferred to live a rather reticent lifestyle building a large farmhouse in Ranchi. He has been a pet lover and motorcycle aficionado and has even taken his role as territorial army man rather seriously. Been a role model has been coming to him easy. Man who wielded more power than finesse on the wicket would still run harder than almost anyone between the wickets and his helicopter shot was a treat to watch for its seamless execution.
Dhoni the leader who promoted himself to shield in-form Yuvraj from Murali’s spin in world cup finals, has been an agile thinker and continues to surprise and upstage opponents in the right way. Looking at some of his moves, I can easily say he could have had a great career in chess also. His innings in the world cup finals to bring the coveted and elusive trophy for Indians after a lull of 28 years was a case study in how to structure and construct your innings on the biggest stage and his last shot to end it still reverberates in my mind as I saw the ball sail into the stands and that one moment left a billion and a half hearts pumping with joy.
