PORT ELIZABETH, SOUTH AFRICA - 20 April 2009. during the IPL Season 2 match between the Chennai Superkings and the Royal Challengers Bangalore held at St Georges Park in Port Elizabeth , South Africa.
Where do I begin? How do I quantify more than a decade’s worth of love into digital pixels. My earliest memory of watching MS Dhoni is probably from around 2008 or 2009 on NeoSports on a small TV in our home in Hyderabad. I was always bad at cricket and would get picked last in the matches in our apartment each evening. After discovering football, I spent time arguing that cricket is a useless sport, only before going home to watch this man deposit cricket balls in the stands.
Dhoni made me fall in love with cricket. While most around me watched the game for Sachin Tendulkar, I watched for Dhoni, wise enough to understand that India needed them both. Boost had a brief campaign where they offered red plastic sipper bottles signed by Dhoni along with boxes of Boost. From there on, began a long loyalty to Boost, until coffee and adolescence found me. I remember signing as Dhoni, reading the M-A-H-I in his signature as M-A-L and wondering what that meant. Carefully mimicking the strokes, that signature was a piece of my hero. A tangible piece of time and space associated with Dhoni belonged to me, and that was enough for me.
Dhoni the batsman was the peak of entertainment. He routinely found a way to win unwinnable matches and made light work of the biggest bowlers around the world. Generational bowlers like Lasith Malinga, Dale Steyn and Jimmy Anderson feared him at the height of his powers and I watched him become the master chaser for India and CSK. Every once in a while a player comes along who completely changes the game. It was clear that Dhoni was that man for cricket. Amassing more than ten thousand runs while primarily batting in at 5, 6 or 7 speaks of all the times Dhoni had to bat after a top-order collapse, with only all-rounders and the tail to support him. This meant that Dhoni, more often than not, had to walk out to bat when the team was under immense pressure. He formed iconic partnerships with Yuvraj Singh, Ravi Jadeja and Suresh Raina when India’s back was against the wall. Pressure makes diamonds doesn’t it? Dhoni found a way to thrive in the pressure, absorbing it and taking it off his teammates so that they could perform to the best of their abilities.
In an interview, Dhoni said that he doesn’t enjoy hitting sixes as much as he enjoys turning the ones into twos and the twos into threes. His raw athleticism and speed meant he would dart across the pitch to pick up tight doubles and to this day, I can’t remember a time where I saw Dhoni dive to save his wicket. He found a way to score in the middle overs, where ODIs and T20s generally slowed down, and his batting prowess meant India always believed, as long as he was at the crease.
That being said, Dhoni’s six hitting ability was jaw-dropping. I’m so happy to have watched the hopeless faces of bowlers, in the same frame as a stylish and most confident batsman, if the game had ever seen one. Every time Dhoni stepped down the pitch against a spinner, the outcome was known. The bowler’s fate had been decided. He was one of the most powerful hitters of the cricket ball and his Helicopter shot turned the deadly yorker into a scoring option. This shot is just a metaphor for Dhoni, in the way that it completely turned one aspect of the game on its head, like Dhoni did to so many games he played in.
I believe the way that somebody speaks tells you a lot about what’s going on in their head. I watched Dhoni evolve into an extremely well-spoken, wise, sensible speaker over the years. His English improved and he articulated himself every time the cameras were pointed at him. He handled the Indian cricketing media brilliantly, with one of my favourite instances coming during India’s 2014 tour of England, where Dhoni loyally defended his brother-in-arms Ravi Jadeja, when the latter was slapped with a fine for ungentlemanly behaviour. Every word Dhoni spoke was used with surgical precision and clear intention. If I’ve spent hours watching highlight packages of him on the field, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time watching his press conferences, mesmerised by his responses. This is exactly the way that I would like to speak. Dhoni has been a huge inspiration for me speaking honestly and communicating well. Being calculated, sensitive and getting my point across.
Dhoni always seemed like he was having a good time on the pitch. Laughing and joking around with his teammates during the most tense of situations. Most recently I watched him stump Shubman Gill to eliminate the danger man in an 2023 IPL final when the rest of the team seemed deflated by the pressure. How did he react? Simply dropping the ball and looking up at Jadeja with a wide smile. That’s a freak if I’ve ever seen one. Towards the back-end of his career, Dhoni lost his cool a lot more than he’ll admit but during his glory days, you would get absolutely nothing from his facial expressions. Nothing fazed him, and he was simply focused on the next ball. They say greatness is reacting to your wins in the same way as to your losses. He could have been the architect of the biggest series victory but Dhoni would just pick up a stump and walk away. It felt like I experienced more tension than he did.
One of his defining qualities was how well he knew the game, and how well everyone trusted him to know it. For instance, after Gill was stumped, Jadeja asked Dhoni if the batter was out. Dhoni smiled and nodded his head. That was enough for Jadeja to break out a smile and give Dhoni a high-five. Jadeja’s eyeballs didn’t even move towards the replay screen. Dhoni’s confirmation was all he needed. Dhoni knew exactly what was going to happen and he stayed ahead of everyone else in the game, making him absolutely unstoppable as a white-ball force. His unassuming nature as an individual might fool you into believing that he isn’t one of the most sheerly dominant white-ball players to ever grace the game. In his day, winning became a habit for India, almost a demand, if it hadn’t been that already.
What is there to be said about Dhoni the leader that hasn’t been said already? I’ve always gravitated towards team sport, because I loved people coming together to try and win as a bunch. Winning together and losing together. Sport is all about people and stories to me. I’ve watched multiple sports and come across many alphas and leadership figures and Dhoni is the single greatest leader I’ve ever seen. He is the kind of leader that I aspire to be. The environment of the Indian team that Dhoni started his captaincy in was extremely tricky. But smooth seas don’t make skilled sailors. He balanced senior players and made them feel valued while mentoring a generation of young Indian world-class players. Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah. All of India’s current biggest names have Dhoni to thank for their success.
Dhoni knew how to use his resources and optimise every member of his squad. He was a fearless captain and took risks to change games, and they almost always worked out in his favour. He wasn’t concerned with the repercussions of losing, and Dhoni’s role as a leader is maybe the only thing that the media has struggled to scrutinise since the 2007 ICC World Twenty20 triumph. Handing trophies to the youngsters and stepping back, he is so magnificent in so many ways. The trust and confidence in their leader allowed players to turn into match-winners. Staying cool and collected on the pitch meant opposition players were always in attendance of a concert, the concert of the master.
No one could have ever imagined Tamil Nadu and Chennai getting behind a Jharkhand boy the way they have gotten behind Dhoni since 2008. The face of one of the world’s biggest sporting franchises, Dhoni transformed in my eyes as God as I watched him win game after game for the Chennai Super Kings. At the time, I lived in Hyderabad but never once did I think of supporting the Deccan Chargers. I stood out from all the boys in my class because I had decided that my loyalty would lie with CSK, almost solely because of Dhoni. Winning the 2011 ICC World Cup gave Dhoni legend status, but continuing to win tight games and consistently making the playoffs with CSK showed that he was truly one of a kind and that he could do anything that he wanted. Supporting CSK along with the Indian team meant I got to support Dhoni fiercely for two different teams and somehow, I was still stunned by every performance of his. Every year, his fanbase only grew and almost 19 years after his debut for India, Dhoni is easily India’s most loved figure, in any field. A household name. A glitch in the matrix.
Forget the stats, the percentages, the wins and the trophies. The kind of admiration and respect I have for Dhoni is so much more than that. I want to be like Dhoni. I love him and am grateful for having been able to witness somebody take the cricketing world by storm. On the night that he won his fifth IPL title, I was uncertain if I’ve seen the last of MSD on a cricket pitch. If that was indeed the last, I have nothing but thanks and love. I write this with a heavy heart but with pride . About the single biggest role model of my life.
