I was at Bhubaneshwar airport when MS Dhoni walked out with just a few balls left of the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) innings in one of the IPL games in early April 2023. The television set in front of Boarding Gate 1 on the ground floor, which till then had no takers, was all of a sudden the object in demand. Those who did not have their mobile devices open to Jio Cinema had queued in front of the TV. In fact, that crowd was, all of a sudden, bigger than the queue in front of security check. All wanted a piece of Mahi.
“Why did he not come earlier?” a kid asked his father as Dhoni was striding out. Many at Chepauk must have asked the same question. Why Ravindra Jadeja, and not Dhoni himself? But therein lies the greatness of the man. May be MSD had decided that he would play these impact cameos all through the IPL season. That he couldn’t sustain for long because he wasn’t the player of old, and hence it was best for the team if he walked out with a few balls remaining and did what he had always done best – hit. Yet again, Mahi maar raha hai [Mahi is hitting], was reverberating all over India.
And it is this mind of his that sets him apart. The difference between CSK and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), at the end, was 12 runs. The two sixes that MSD hit in his three-ball stay at the crease.
Over the years, MSD has done it again and again. In many close encounters, the most famous of them being the World T20 final in 2007, with Joginder Sharma, and the 2011 World Cup final where, much to everyone’s surprise, he promoted himself in the batting order ahead of in-form Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina, and took India home.
A third memory, not as firmly etched in the public imagination, is of how Dhoni turned the tide in the 2013 Champions Trophy final against England in Birmingham. Defending a modest 129 from 20 overs in a rain-curtailed game, Dhoni was fast running out of options, with Eoin Morgan and Ravi Bopara on a roll. That’s when he turned, counter-intuitively for many experts, to Ishant Sharma, who had been singled out for harsh treatment by the English batters. Sitting in the Edgbaston press box, we agreed that it was a huge gamble: one more bad over, and it would have been curtains for India. But, to everyone’s surprise, Ishant picked up two wickets in two balls and, all of a sudden, India had a chance. In another inspired tactical move, Dhoni got Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin, his frontline spinners, to bowl overs 19 and 20. They teased the English batsman, far more comfortable against pace, to slog and perish. It worked, and gave MSD the only ICC silverware missing from his and India’s collection.
Also Read: Looking back at the Champions Trophy win. Under MS Dhoni
The reason that cricketing brain of his processes dynamic, on-field information well is because his calmness reduces clutter, which in turn leads to clarity of thought. This was in tellingly illustrated all through IPL 2023.
The ability to think on his feet and soak up pressure in tight situations has served him well as a leader. Almost irrespective of the match situation, Dhoni is a step ahead of the competition.
A senior academic at IIM Kolkata says that Dhoni is a favourite business-school case study. His modest early life is too well-documented to need repetition, but it’s worth reminding ourselves that it was he who really gave wings to the cricketing aspirations of small-town India. It was Dhoni more than anyone else who gave those from cricket’s backwaters the hope that perhaps they could do it too. Isn’t the IPL all about that? The story of India?
Dhoni was far from perfect, though. He may not have been as naturally gifted as Sachin Tendulkar, as resilient as Sunil Gavaskar or as flamboyant as Kapil Dev. Nor was he a stylist with the bat — he was no David Gower or VVS Laxman or Mohammed Azharuddin, whose batting grace people love to wax lyrical about. Nor was he a natural behind the stumps. But he made up for the lack of such gifts in ways that others could only envy.
His mind was, and remains, matchless. And if you measure him simply by success, then try and beat his haul — the World T20 (2007), the World Cup (2011) and the ICC Champions Trophy (2013), not to forget India’s ascent, under his leadership, to the No.1 spot in the ICC Test rankings.
But even beyond the gifts of mind and body or leadership, the man stands for, and is driven by, a certain process-based work ethic. Dhoni has never prioritised the end result. That’s why he was unhappy with his bowlers at the start of the IPL, when they did not follow the process. He was livid during the post-match presentation, and such moments bring a lightness of spirit to his adventures on the field. Over the course of the season, the smile that cricket aficionados and fans the world over love to see was frequently glimpsed. Chennai loves him. As does India. We all do. And on his birthday, all his fans will hope that Thala is back for a swansong in 2024, to chase a record sixth IPL title and further burnish an already matchless legacy.
Also Read: MS Dhoni – Lessons in Life and Captaincy