Soliloquy

Mahendra Singh Dhoni gave Indian cricket all that he possibly could, perhaps even more. He changed the vantage point of the game in a country which truly hadn’t released itself from the clutches of colonialism. In a game dominated by textbookish brilliance and artistic languidness, Dhoni chose to differ. His beauty lay in his flaws. He wasn’t the most technically perfect batsman in the side and never did he try to become one. Neither was he gifted with artistic beauty and a bat which looked more like a wand. What he did have though, was tonnes of self confidence. Dhoni knew that this beautiful game was played best when kept simple and he did just that.           

Dhoni could hit the ball a long way and never shied away from doing that. For a lot of us mere mortals, he made it look that the international arena was just an extension of our backyards. He swung at what was in his zone and invariably they would land outside the big Indian stadiums. But he knew what his zone was – which means that he knew his strengths and weaknesses very well. If One Day cricket was his forte where he was termed as the ‘king finisher’, he didn’t do too badly either in Tests where his main role was to add length to the middle order and shield the lower order and tail. If I may be so bold as to suggest, MS Dhoni’s batting was essentially, ‘See ball-hit ball.’ There was never quite anything as simple as that and the fact that he succeeded more often than he failed shows that that’s how the game is best played.

As a wicketkeeper MS Dhoni protected his place in the Indian Test team for more than eight years which was first of a kind as those before him had contracts of just over a series or so! His glovework wasn’t flashy but neither was it pretentious. He held on to straight forward catches more often than his predecessors did and his stumpings were flashes of brilliance. In the modern era, rarely had someone ‘kept wickets so successfully as Dhoni against the magic of Kumble, Harbhajan, Ashwin and Ojha. Connoisseurs could complain over his technique with the gloves but never could they complain over his ability to hold on to chances.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni the captain was a different story altogether. Some might say that he inherited a very good side from Sourav Ganguly which was true but Dhoni formed them into a tight winning group, something which his predecessor never could. If Ganguly had made Indians believe that they could win, it was Dhoni who made them see that they really could do so. He believed in hunches and taking risks and was prepared to back his players to the hilt. Dhoni brought a fresh perspective to bookish captaincy and made calculated decisions often look like jokes.

 His batting had its flaws. Playing swing bowling never seemed like a big worry in his early days but later on when his reflexes got slower and eyesight weaker, he suffered from the hands of Anderson and company in the British Isles and Johnson down under. With age, what didn’t slow down was his courage. MSD had always been relenting on One Day cricket and that showed. When he first came along, his 147 against Pakistan in Visakhapatnam and 183* against Sri Lanka in Jaipur made all of us sit up and notice who this little upstart was.

Most of all, MSD made India believe. He taught us to believe that we could conquer the world. That we could lift trophies. That we could defeat the superpowers of the game. That we could be numero uno in any format of the game. The World T20 2007 and Champions Trophy 2013 were just side dishes to the main course of his biggest successes – Number one in Test cricket and the World Cup 2011. Under him, we were nigh on unbeatable.

Not every ending is a fairytale and neither was the MSD story in Test cricket. It was disappointing that his personal and team’s form dropped spectacularly after the highs of April 2011. Two consecutive 0-4 whitewashes followed against the mighty British and the fragile Aussies in their own backyards. If this wasn’t worrying enough, the Brits came calling in the winter of 2012 and retained the Pataudi series 2-1. Dhoni was under fire now. We never expected to win overseas but giving a fight should’ve been on the cards. More than that the defeats at home would’ve stung him for sure.

Sachin Tendulkar bade the game farewell in a hastily arranged series against the West Indies in October 2013 which India won comfortably 2-0. As a legend walked away, another in the making stepped inside the bullring. Rohit Sharma scored two consecutive hundreds in his first two Tests. MSD gave us a ray of hope that everything was going good indeed. Moderate success followed in New Zealand too.

India made good ground in the World T20 in March 2014, only to lose the final to Sri Lanka. That December, MSD led his team to Australia but after missing the first Test due to injury, lost the next two. The critics and he himself  had had enough. The call for his head got stronger and before you could tell, he had called it quits from the longest version of the game. Virat Kohli was named skipper and Dhoni walked away into the sunset. The World Cup 2015 followed and we got to the semifinals, stopped by the eventual champions – the marauding Aussies.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni has retired from Test cricket and though he continues to lead us in One Day Internationals, his nonchalance is missed. Here was a bloke who just wasn’t like the others. I’m sure that he sleeps well at night but do I, the Indian fan do so as well? No. Because the Indian fan is not sure what he wants from MSD. We do not know as to whether applaud him for all that he’s done for us or curse him for leading us till base camp and quitting before reaching the top. We don’t know what to expect from him and that is because we don’t know what we want. But Mahendra Singh Dhoni had reached Everest and stood tall for some time. Most importantly, he had achieved his dream of meeting Sachin Tendulkar.

For a small kid growing up in the backstreets of obscure Ranchi, that was enough.