MAHENDRA SINGH DHONI

Prince of Ranchi and one of the most successful captains of the Indian team, Mahendra Singh Dhoni was born on 7 July 1981. As a child, Dhoni played football and badminton very well, being the goalkeeper of the football team of his school DAV. Dhoni also played both these games at the district and club level. Once while practising football with his team, one of his teachers saw him goal-keeping. The way Dhoni’s eyes were focused towards the ball and seeing the quickness in his hands, his teacher asked him to try his hand at wicket-keeping. Dhoni did not play cricket as such but he started liking wicket-keeping, he started playing regularly from the Commando Cricket Club. While playing for his club Commando Cricket Club, he played some great innings. After this, in the year 1998, Deval Sahay was impressed with his game and took him in his team – Central Coal Fields. Deval Sahay had kept a reward to motivate Dhoni; he would give Dhoni fifty rupees for the sixes he hit during the Sheesh Mahal tournament. Deval Sahay had connections; he was impressed by Dhoni’s game and recommended for him to play in the Bihar Ranji team. Dhoni played the first match for the Bihar Ranji team in 2000 after playing with the Ranchi team and then the junior team of Bihar. Deval Sahay was a former deputy secretary of the Bihar Cricket Association, and Dhoni considers him a major source of inspiration in his career. Meanwhile, Dhoni’s career continued to fluctuate, he was sometimes selected for domestic matches and sometimes he missed out. Once he was selected in a tournament, it was not known to him but his friends came to know through the newspaper. He rushed to the airport with the help of his friends in a hurry but upon reaching there, it was found that the team’s flight had departed, even then Dhoni was not disappointed.

This was the special thing about Dhoni’s personality, he didn’t get disheartened easily, and he never panicked or got distracted when a difficult situation arrived. A very exciting event took place in the finals of the 1999 Bihar Trophy match between teams from Bihar and Punjab, in this match Dhoni’s future teammate, and India’s explosive batsman Yuvraj Singh was also playing. In the first innings, Bihar scored an average score, and Dhoni contributed 84 runs. But after all this, when the batting of Punjab came, something special happened, perhaps no one would have witnessed this before. Yuvraj Singh played a brilliant inning of 358 runs, which was more than the total of the entire Bihar team. After such a great performance, Yuvraj’s selection was almost certain, Dhoni had to wait longer. Dhoni got a job as a ticket collector in the Railways but was not able to strike a balance between work and sports. Dhoni was not disappointed even after he missed out on selection in the Indian Under-19 team, taking this opportunity as a challenge and decided to work harder. In 2002, the BCCI formed the Talent Research Wing, this committee aimed to give talented small-town players a chance to play at the national level, players who belong to a small city, village or town, often due to players from big cities they are left behind because the facilities in the village are less and opportunities are not available. Dhoni started to make his mark in domestic cricket, after playing some good innings, once in the Deodhar Trophy; he got a chance to show his flair in front of the selectors.

Dhoni took full advantage of the opportunity, impressing the selectors with his strong performance. Dhoni was selected for India A’s Zimbabwe and Kenya Tour, going there, Dhoni scored two brilliant centuries against Pakistan A, along with a half-century. Impressed by Dhoni’s performance, the then Indian team captain Sourav Ganguly and former player Ravi Shastri thought of giving Dhoni a chance in the team. Dhoni got selected for the next big tour of India, he got to play the first match of his career for India against Bangladesh. He may never forget his first match, Dhoni was run out on zero in his first match. In the rest of the Bangladesh series matches, Dhoni’s performance was either mediocre or below par, despite all this, Ganguly showed confidence in Dhoni and kept him in the team for the next series. In the second match of the series against Pakistan, Dhoni scored the first century of his career, batting in a blistering way, Dhoni scored 148 runs, this innings also vindicated Ganguly’s faith in Dhoni. This innings served as a boon for his career, at that time the Indian team was looking for a good wicket-keeper, many players had been tried but some would perform badly with the bat and others with the gloves. No player could be found who was a dependable batsman and showed agility behind the wicket. Naman Ojha, Dinesh Karthik and Dhoni, all three of them had a competition among them, the first choice of the selectors was Dhoni due to his explosive batting and amazing wicket-keeping ability.

Dhoni fully capitalized on good form and hit an unbeaten 183 in a one-day match against Sri Lanka in Jaipur. He also performed exceptionally well in a game against Pakistan in the upcoming series, taking the team out of trouble and winning it. Series by series and year after year Dhoni became an important part of the Indian team. After the defeat of India in the 2007 World Cup, outside Dhoni’s house, people were angry and shouted slogans, burnt effigies. A new format was introduced in 2007, the T20 format, a format that is well known today. Dhoni went to South Africa with a very young team, surpassing everyone’s expectations, India defeated teams like England, Australia and reached the final. In the final against Pakistan, the match came to a thrilling point, one wicket left, 12 runs needed in the last over and Pakistan had one wicket remaining. Harbhajan Singh, who was the experienced bowler of the Indian team, had one over left, besides Joginder Sharma’s overs were also left but he had proved to be expensive earlier. This was the first time when Dhoni showed his out of the box thinking, gave the ball to Joginder Sharma in place of Harbhajan Singh, the first ball was hit for a long six, it seemed that the trophy slipped out of hand, after that Dhoni went to Joginder and said something. What happened after that changed the picture of Indian cricket, Misbah handed a catch straight into the hands of a fielder positioned by Dhoni. India became the winner of the first T20 World Cup, marking the start of Dhoni’s golden career. After Anil Kumble retired, Dhoni was also given the captaincy of the Test team.

In 2008, India won the ODI series under Dhoni’s captaincy for the first time on the Australian soil. During the final match, Dhoni called a player from the dressing room a few balls before the victory, telling him to tell everyone to celebrate the win in a very quiet way, by this, he wanted to give a message to Australia that for India, defeating Australia is not a big achievement. This mentality of Dhoni makes him different, the more calm and humble he remains, the more he is down to earth person in normal life. After this, Australia came to play India, India won the series under Dhoni’s captaincy, after this winning matches against New Zealand, then South Africa, after being victorious against all of them India also got the number one status in the Test under Dhoni’s captaincy. After all, this came the year 2011, the year that everyone was waiting for, the team looked strong, India stumbled, winning meanwhile and reached the final, Dhoni had not played any special innings in the whole tournament, according to his standards, his performance with the bat was pretty off colour. Dhoni is considered the player of the big matches, when everyone loses their control over themselves during difficult situations, Mahendra Singh Dhoni thinks cool headedly. In the final, India was in trouble against Sri Lanka, India had lost three wickets while chasing the target, Yuvraj had to go to bat. Just then, Dhoni noticed that Muralitharan had arrived. In fact, Yuvraj did not play the spinner so well, Dhoni decided to bat before Yuvraj himself, sensing the situation. Seeing this at the time, everyone criticized it because Yuvraj had won many matches for India with his bat and ball in the tournament, the best form in the Indian team of a player was that of Yuvraj. Despite all this, Dhoni went himself, playing slowly with restraint and he brought India closer to the target. In the end, smashing that historic six with his bat, he gave India the precious thing that it was waiting for.

India won the World Cup after 28 years, Dhoni then went on to tour Australia and England, losing all the matches there. After this, there were a lot of questions raised on Dhoni’s captaincy, after that a run of victories, as well as defeats, continued, India then went to play the Champions Trophy in England in 2013.  Similar to 2007, India had reached England with a young team, India did not look so strong in the absence of veterans like Sachin, Sehwag and Gambhir. The first match was with South Africa, Dhoni surprised everyone, he asked Rohit Sharma to open, Rohit Sharma used to come for batting at number five or six. Rohit’s performance was quite average, but Dhoni’s decision changed the fate of his career, in the first match, Rohit hit a century. India reached the finals by performing extremely well in the upcoming matches. Mahi’s magic was seen once again in the final, Dhoni took some surprising decisions due to his understanding of the game of cricket and the art of remaining calm in a difficult situation, the decisions seemed absurd/pointless at the time but proved to be the turning point of the match. With Dhoni handing the ball to Ishant in the final, Dhoni took another shocking decision, Ishant then changed the course of the match by taking two wickets in two balls. India became Champions Trophy winners. In international cricket, Dhoni was also making headlines in the IPL, he took his team Chennai Super Kings to the pinnacle on the back of his batting and captaincy. The Chennai team reached the final in the first edition of the IPL, two years after that they defeated Mumbai for the first time and became the winner. The Chennai team was also the winner in the next edition, in the following editions, they were able to reach just till the final.

In December, India toured Australia, captaining in the Test matches, one morning Dhoni shocked everyone, he handed over the captaincy to Kohli in the middle of the series and announced his retirement from the Test, he took this decision for focusing on One Day. In the year 2014, Dhoni started playing the role of a finisher, there were many occasions where the target seemed impossible but Dhoni ensured India’s victory. In 2012, India needed twelve runs from four balls in a match, Dhoni won the game in just three balls for India, such opportunities kept coming up many times. Not only this, while batting first, when India had to make runs at a quick pace in the final overs, Dhoni came and played a blistering inning. Only his innings produced the difference between victory and defeat. Be it India or foreign soil, Dhoni finished many matches for India which hardly any other batsman of the world could. Dhoni had, in fact, changed his playing style since getting the captaincy. At the beginning of his career he used to play blinding innings, after getting the captaincy, he started showing more responsibility in his game. After judging the need and situation of the team, after assessing everything, Dhoni tried to take the match as close as possible, eventually winning it with sixes or fours in his own way. The 2015 World Cup took place in Australia, India played well but lost to Australia in the semi-finals, it proved to be India’s last World Cup under the captaincy of Dhoni. After the World Cup, in a thrilling match against Sri Lanka in the West Indies, Dhoni scored 17 runs in the last over to give India a one-wicket victory. Due to many such innings of Dhoni, he is called the best finisher not only of India but of the world. After this, Dhoni’s approach started changing, he started playing more cautiously. Meanwhile, in early 2017, Dhoni handed over the captaincy responsibility to India’s rising star, young batsman Virat Kohli.

With this came the end of a golden phase of Indian cricket, a period that gave India a distinct identity in the world. Apart from India winning titles, the most important thing along with it was that it dominated the other teams. India beat big teams like Australia, England and South Africa, Mahi’s team performed splendidly well in all the Tests or One Day. Apart from all this, the most precious thing that India got under Dhoni’s captaincy was the young players of India. Many players like Virat, Rohit, Ashwin and Jadeja were given plenty of opportunities by Dhoni to prove themselves, due to which these players were able to make so much progress. Hardly any clever and smart captain like Dhoni had played cricketer ever, how he got the better of the opponents with his smartness and cleverness was not realised. There were some controversies under Dhoni’s captaincy, but controversies are a part of a cricketer’s career. Since 2017, when Dhoni relinquished the captaincy, questions arose over his place in the team. Speculations were being made about retirement, it is a matter of utter disgrace that the captain who led India to the World Cup Victory, under whose captaincy the Indian team saw its most successful phase, instead of honouring the player, and people questioned him. Dhoni’s performance was quite good, but his strike rate was steadily declining, which was a cause for concern. Amidst all this, Dhoni’s heroics in the IPL remained intact; he won his team IPL for the third time in 2018. Dhoni’s batting did not look like it used to be before, his helicopter shot was sort of lost somewhere, he had become a single-double player.

Dhoni was in the 2019 World Cup squad, he played some fine knocks. He stood up for the team in the semi-finals, perhaps when India needed him the most, an incredible direct hit from Martin Guptill in the final moments got Dhoni out, it was the last run out of Dhoni’s career. The match proved to be his last match. The entire country wanted to bid Dhoni off with a World Cup victory but that desire could not be fulfilled. After a gap of almost a year, on the country’s Independence Day, Dhoni announced his retirement from international cricket. With this, the golden career of a very impactful player, captain and a wicket-keeper came to an end. Players like Dhoni are probably seen once in a century, everything of him was so very special, a brain like him, his batting and his quickness was just top-notch. In the wicket-keeping, no one in the whole world could compete with him, his hands used to dismantle the bails so fast that the batsman was out in the blink of an eye. Dhoni was a winner on the field, he is also a winner off the field. His story of a simple clerk to the captain of the Indian team and then the World Cup victory is a saga from which many generations will learn. Due to his determination, hard work and dedication, he made a name for himself by moving out of a small town like Ranchi, creating history and making India proud around the world. Mahendra Singh Dhoni changed the way of playing cricket, he won matches on the back of his unorthodox technique, now in the final overs, the pressure is on the bowler and not on the batsman. His greatness can be sensed from the fact that by batting at number five, he maintained an average above fifty, not only that he scored ten thousand runs at this average. Dhoni is still playing IPL with his team Chennai, now he is enjoying life; he is often seen having fun with his daughter Zeeva.