It was late December 2019, and we had just finished a chat show with one of MS Dhoni’s sponsors in New Delhi. I had a flight to catch in a few hours and was looking to grab some lunch before I left the hotel. That was when the invite came. “Do you want to have lunch together?” asked Dhoni, before disappearing into the elevator. “Please come up to my room and we can grab a bite.”
There was no one else present, and we could have a conversation without having to think of what would come out in the media. While we ordered lunch, Dhoni settled into one of the sofas with his iPad and asked me to sit next to him. He wanted to show me something, and looked slightly more intense than usual. In front of us were some spectacular outdoor photos, in which Dhoni was seen enjoying the beauties of nature.
“This was the army camp I went to last week,” he told me. “Not many know about it. We slept out in the open and did all the drills. I wasn’t MS Dhoni there and that was the biggest satisfaction. In the army, I am just another soldier and I could relax myself.”
Was the army an escape from what he had been through at the 2019 ICC World Cup semi-final against New Zealand? Could he not digest the defeat, and was the decision to step away from cricket prompted by a deep trauma?
When I asked him these questions, I did not get a direct answer. “I think I should have dived,” he said, while still flipping through the photos. “Had I dived, I would have made up the two inches and no way would I have been out.”
Seeing me curious and confused, he smiled and continued, “You know what, I had never dived in my life. So when I was going for the second run, the thought of the dive did come to my mind. But then, I had never dived. I felt I could make it. If I had just dived…”
His words trailed off, and Martin Guptill and his freakish throw from the deep were a silent presence in the room. To refresh the memory … Dhoni was going for a second run with 25 runs still to get in 10 balls. He had achieved similar targets many times before and there was no reason to believe he wouldn’t do it one final time.
The dismissal had come to dominate the conversation and I could sense that Dhoni was clearly not over it. It was still raw, as if it had happened just the other day.
“The last over in that semi-final was to be bowled by Jimmy Neesham and I was backing myself,” said Dhoni. “While you can’t say anything in cricket, 16 to 17 runs wasn’t something…” Dhoni stopped in his tracks. Neesham against Dhoni in a World Cup semi-final with the world watching could only have one winner, and no one knew that better than MSD.
“I had planned the innings all along, and with Jaddu [Ravindra Jadeja], we were constantly assessing what we needed to do,” he said. “An inch stopped us from implementing our plans.”
Clearly, there was pain and a deep sense of frustration. The army, more than anything, was an escape. He could lose himself to what he loved doing, and try and forget the disappointment of losing to New Zealand.
Dhoni, one of the best runners between wickets, was run out in his last international innings. “As I was walking out of the ground, I couldn’t help but think that this was how it all started,” he said. “I was run out in my very first innings, and here I was out run out in what was to be my last.”
While we will all remember Dhoni for his incredible leadership and white-ball skills, we will also recall the last run-out. One of the greatest to play the game, even he couldn’t escape the cruelty of sport. A truly imperfect finish for the perfect finisher. He probably had tears in his eyes as he walked off the Old Trafford cricket ground on that ill-fated day in July 2019. And we were all left with lumps in our throats after seeing a legend denied his last hurrah. But that’s sport. It is never perfect and there are no retakes. Even for the greatest, there is no rewind button. In what was a truly remarkable career, which will forever be remembered in the annals of Indian cricket, there will always be that one inch to lament. As Dhoni himself said, “If only I had dived.”
The what-if question will spice up cricket debates for a long time. We will continue to argue if he could have scripted a final fairytale. The truth, however, is out there. It is time to agree that imperfect is the new perfect. The new normal.
But with sports, there is always a second chance. On November 15, 2023, India meet New Zealand once again at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. The same adversary. And the same prize in the balance – a place in the World Cup final.
Can Rohit Sharma do it for Dhoni? Could Virat Kohli, who loves Dhoni as a mentor, do it for him? Will Dhoni even be there to witness it? An Indian win dedicated to him could very well make the imperfect perfect.
After all, this Indian team is in search of a tenth straight win. Ten out of ten – the new perfect.