M.S.Dhoni- The Lasting Legacy
This article is a small tribute to “Captain Cool” Mahendra Singh Dhoni for an extraordinary career, as a leader, player, an incredible human on and off the field and an excellent ambassador of the game.
India has been one of the greatest cricketing nation over two decades. It has tasted excellent glories, produced some great performances with both bat and the ball and created many match winners. Despite all these performances Indian cricket team was always lacking a reliable wicket keeper batsman. Many wicket keeping batsman stepped on to the field but they weren’t good enough to fill the void.
In 2004, a young man with long brown hair and unorthodox batting style named Mahendra Singh Dhoni (M.S.Dhoni) stepped on to the field to represent India as wicket keeper batsman. His beginning to the international cricket was not good as he expected, he was dismissed for a duck in his maiden ODI innings followed by a very average series in Bangladesh. As great captains believe in their subordinates, Captain Sourav Ganguly believed in the potential of M.S.Dhoni. He Promoted him up the order in the 2nd ODI against Pakistan, Dhoni scored an excellent 148 of 123 balls with explosive shots all over the ground, this brought Dhoni to the limelight in the international cricketing fraternity. After this innings Dhoni’s batting graph started to ascend. In a crucial ODI game against Srilanka chasing a huge target of 299,Dhoni remained unbeaten on 183 taking the team over the line and even today it is the best score by any wicket-keeper batsman. This Innings cemented Dhoni’s place as the team India’s wicket keeper. He reached number one position in ODI’s in 42 innings which is the fastest by any player in cricketing history.
With Consecutive ODI series victories during 2005–2007, India stepped on to the world cup 2007 as one of the favorites, but India was eliminated in the group stage of the competition, pushing the whole cricketing community in a shock wave. India entered the T20 World Cup in South Africa with a young team and a new captain. The new captain was none other than M.S.Dhoni, MSD was recommended for captaincy by our Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar himself. Sachin noticed enormous leadership skills in Dhoni, while watching him closely from the slip cordon. Under Dhoni’s captaincy team India marched on to win the T20 World Cup, followed by 2011 World Cup and 2013 Champions Trophy triumphs. These victories displayed exemplary leadership skills and decision making qualities of Dhoni to the entire world. He is the only captain to win all three ICC trophies in the cricket history and which is a tough record to be broken in years to come. Year 2009 saw the reemergence of India in test as they won the test championship mace and show some extraordinary performances in the following years, it became one of the toughest contenders to be beaten in the home conditions. During 2014–15 series down under (Australia), Dhoni announced his retirement from tests and continued to lead India in T20’s and ODI’s before he stepped down from captaincy in 2017 paving way to his deputy Virat Kohli to lead India in all three formats. Dhoni always had the policy of accepting the criticisms from the front and enjoying the defeat from behind which made him the best captain.He is called as “Captain Cool” for handling pressure with ease and making accurate decisions. During the captaincy tenure Dhoni was selected as the ICC ODI XI captain for 5 times and ICC player of the year in 2008, 2009.
The T20 world cup triumph in 2007 acted as a catalyst for the inauguration of Indian Premier League(IPL) in 2008. Dhoni led Chennai Super Kings (CSK) is considered to one of the most successful teams in the competition making into play offs in all the season the franchise played. CSK has won the IPL title thrice (2008,2009,2018) and champions league title twice (2010 and 2014). The main reason behind the consistency of CSK is the Dhoni’s team selection and his ability to bring the best out of them. The people of Chennai have adopted him as their son and fondly calls him “Thala” meaning head of the troops. Dhoni reminds me of a statement said by Rahul Dravid “ The key is not about the team selection, it is all about what you do with the playing eleven you choose”.
Dhoni’s composure during pressure situations has aided him to win many games and he is considered as the greatest “finisher” of the game. As Ian Bishop once said “if 15 runs is required of the last over the pressure is on the bowler and not on Dhoni”. His presence at the crease not only brings confidence to his teammates but also to the audience watching the game, from “Lets switch off the TV because Sachin is out to lets watch the game because Dhoni is still at the crease”, this is the kind of impact he has created over the years. He has single handedly won so many games from the jaw of defeat.
He is one of the best wicket keepers the world has seen, he accounts to most dismissals after Mark Boucher and Adam Gilchrist . He has effected more than 100 stumpings in ODI and no other wicket keeper has touched 100 landmark. He is so quick that the batsman hesitate to step out when Dhoni is behind the stumps. His guidance from behind the stumps had taken plenty of burden off the bowlers shoulders and making their jobs easy.
He has been awarded many prestigious awards from the government of India such as Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna in 2008 (For excellence in sports), Padma Shri in 2009 (Fourth highest civilian honor), Padma Bhushan in 2018 (Third highest civilian honor). He is one of the greatest individual to have played the game, humble, honest and respects every opposition. He has humongous fan following all over the world. He always believed in the process more than the result.
“Trust the process don’t worry about the result, even if you fail it is just learning- M.S.DHONI”
Dhoni announced his retirement from international cricket on 15th August 2020 along with his best mate Suresh Raina. The India selectors now have a huge void to fill, India may find another batsman, wicket keeper or a finisher, but not everything in one person such as Dhoni. From a ticket collector to trophy collector, he has inspired many small town boys and made them believe in their dreams.
Dear Dhoni, you might have retired from the game but never from our hearts, you will always be my Idol.
