Leading the way
“Dhoni finishes it off in style…India lift the World Cup after 28 years and it is an Indian captain who has been absolutely magnificent in the night of a final”, Ravi Shastri’s words blasted into Mumbai’s night sky as fireworks on April 2, 2011. A nation went berserk in celebration. Hordes of people screamed in enthusiasm, rushing to the streets with tears of joy while some others just sank into their seats absorbing the magnanimity of the moment. While India went ecstatic, there was one man at the center of the cricket pitch who just gazed at the cricket ball he had launched into the universe as a meteor. As he stared at it, his hands just twirled the cricket bat with a nonchalance as if saying, “I knew this is how it was meant to be.” As that man — Mahendra Singh Dhoni - announced his retirement on India’s Independence Day today with an Instagram post that plays the song “Main Pal Do Pal ka Shayar Hun” (roughly translates to “my existence is only for a few moments”) and reads “from 1929 hours consider me as Retired”, he simple reiterates this nonchalance that had become his trademark. That is the “Legend of M.S Dhoni” !
MSD or Mahi, as he is fondly known, leaves behind a legacy that will reverberate in the hearts of Indians for ages to come. For those of this generation, he gave them their childhood, fulfilled their dreams of seeing India lift the trophy in a sport that is possibly British colonialism’s only gift to the nation, and pumped Indian hearts with immeasurable pride and joy. While his glory makes him a superstar, it is truly his story that makes him a “modern folk hero”. It is not as much about MSD lifting that trophy in 2011 but about him slowly receding out of the limelight after that moment, as if bowing in veneration to the great Sachin Tendulkar as he embraced the moment he had strived for in the last two decades with Indian Cricket. It is not as much about MSD smiling after Umar Gul missed hitting the stumps in the bowl-out of the ICC World T20 final in 2007 but about him handing the last over of that match to an almost rookie bowler against India’s arch-rivals both on and off the cricket field. It is not as much about him jumping in joy after the English batsman missed hitting the last ball in the 2017 Champions Trophy final in England but about how he handed the penultimate over of that match to a bowler who until that moment was one of the most expensive in the match. It is all about MSD’s trust in his people, his human and emotional intelligence over data-backed analysis, and his “live the moment” attitude that made him an extraordinary leader of men. That is the “Legend of M.S Dhoni”!
There are very few personalities who have the aura to unite a nation as diverse as India. Where every person on every corner of the street has an opinion on how the team should have played, who should be in the “playing eleven” and what tactics should the Captain use, there were very few who questioned MSD. Even those who did prayed within their hearts that he proved them wrong. As humans we tend to love a good underdog story. What could be more inspiring than the journey of an Indian Railways Ticket Collector to a World Cup-winning captain’s! It was perhaps this story and many more that came to light as he grew into stardom, that united the nation and built its trust in one of their sons. The man spoke little, seldom emoted but as his head dropped after that fateful run-out a year ago in ICC World Cup 2019 semi-final against New Zealand, an entire nation cried. Not just because India had lost its chance to proceed to the finals but because they realized Mahi had given his blood, sweat and tears to the nation’s cause in what has now turned out to be his swansong in national colors. In a recent interview, a senior cricket journalist mentioned an anecdote from early 2020 where Dhoni shared pictures of his outing with the Indian military after that semi-final run-out in 2019. On seeing him sleeping out in the wild, the journalist asked if he was comfortable doing it to which MSD apparently replied saying, “If only I had dived in that semi-final in 2019, maybe I would have made it. I have never dived while running. If only I did…but not everything happens as planned.” It was as if he wished to push himself to break that comfort and also, use it as a medium to escape what had happened. It was only human of him to have thought things could have been different. It now seems as it was the universe’s conspiracy that a career that began with a run-out had to end the same way. That is the “Legend of M.S Dhoni”!
For quite sometime after MSD gave up limited overs captaincy in 2016, there were murmurs about his place in the side. As chatter grew around his age and role in the team, MSD payed little heed to the world while doing what he did best — focus on the task at hand. He ensured he was among the fittest in the team even at 35+ years of age, grew into one of the greatest wicket-keepers to have played the game by deploying his street smartness, and continued to bat at difficult positions to get the team out of tricky situations and win matches from there, more often than not. However what Indian cricket will be forever indebted to him will be his handling of people — be it working with the famed, revered seniors or managing enthusiastic, temperamental rookies. When it came to MSD, everyone knew they had a shoulder to lean on. From being a pillar of support for current captain Virat Kohli to advising the young bowlers on tactics and field settings, MSD did it all. To the extent that in a match against Bangladesh, he hilariously paused while taking guard to advise the Bangladesh bowler that his fielder was outside the inner circle — such was his awareness of the game. He will possibly go down as a case study in management in years to come. Today on the eve of Independence day, as the nation salutes and remembers its servants and martyrs, it will be proud and forever grateful to this son — who appeared as a ray of sunrise giving millions of Indians and cricket fans a sense of hope, joy and immense pride and will now shine in the galaxy as a bright, shining star. This truly is the “Legend of M.S Dhoni”!
