He walked in with the stage set. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, given that he hadn’t come out at No.5 or No.6 even once this season. Intense focus writ large on his face. The crowd going crazy. They wanted their hero to do the job. But this is sport. It has its ways of surprising you. And there are no retakes. Mohit bowled and, to his utter disbelief, Dhoni hit it straight to the fielder at cover who made no mistake. The stadium was stunned. As was everyone watching.
Was the 2019 curse back? Martin Guptill then. Mohit Sharma now. And as he walked back, you could sense the pain. The disappointment and the deep hurt. He so badly needed it, and he desperately wanted it. And as Mohit was putting together a sensational final over, Dhoni gradually started to take off his pads. Gujarat were taking control, and Dhoni, with just a shake of the head, started to look down. Was the dream over?
But then, his designated successor from last year was out there. With Ravindra Jadeja, one thing is certain – you will see fight. Till the end. The last two balls weren’t for the faint-hearted. Chennai needed 10 off two, and with Mohit bowling yorkers to perfection, you had to think it was Gujarat’s game. And that’s when Jadeja found his swing. A yorker gone slightly wrong was hit straight back for six, to put CSK right back in it.
Dhoni could only watch, but then he is god’s child. The cricket gods had denied him once. They wouldn’t do it a second time. That one six appear to derail Mohit. We will never know for certain. But a poor last ball on leg stump, and Jadeja just guided it past short fine. As the ball darted towards the boundary, he started running. The sword dance did not come, but what did was something that made for a perfect ending for the consummate finisher. Jadeja dedicated the triumph to Dhoni, and justly so. At 42, Dhoni had won CSK its 5th IPL title as captain. The greatest white-ball captain that cricket and India has ever seen.
It was late December 2019, and we had just finished a chat show for one of 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 Delhi hotel. That’s when the invite came. “Do you want to have lunch together?” asked Dhoni. “Please come up to my room and we can grab a bite,” he said before disappearing into the elevator with his team of security personnel.
The whole cricket world wanted to know the mind of the man, and this was an opportunity. 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 normal.
In front of us were some spectacular outdoor photos, in which Dhoni was seen enjoying the beauty of nature to the fullest. “This was the army camp I went to last week,” he said. “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 World Cup? Could he not digest the defeat to New Zealand, and was the decision to move away from cricket prompted by a deep sense of trauma? Was he not as cool as he portrayed himself to be? When I asked him these questions, I did not get a direct answer. While still flipping through the photos, he started to say, “I think I should have dived. Had I dived, I would have made up the two inches and no way would I be 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. Just if I dived…”
His words trailed off, and Guptill and his freakish throw was a silent presence in the room. To refresh the memory, Dhoni was going for a second run with 25 runs to get off 10 balls. Very similar to what it was on Monday night in Ahmedabad. He had achieved similar targets dozens of 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.
He needed redemption, and it could only come via the IPL with international cricket no longer an option for him. The title defence in 2022 went horribly for CSK and with an ailing body not helping, 2023 could well have been his last shot at that coveted title. The perfect finish for the perfect finisher. And it happened with Jadeja sealing the game for him and CSK.
In what has been a truly remarkable career, which will forever be remembered in the annals of Indian cricket, there will always be this one game that will be as much talked about as his 2011 World Cup win. And the World T20 in 2007. And the Champions Trophy in 2013. The fairy-tale finish. We may continue to argue about whether the rain made it tough for Gujarat. The truth, however, is out there. It is time to agree that with Dhoni, there is a new meaning for perfection. The perfect ending for the greatest to captain India and CSK. Dreams do come true. And deservedly so.
Also Read: MS Dhoni – Lessons in Life and Captaincy