Captain Hope

For someone who was not even in the reckoning for captaincy over a year ago, Mahendra Singh Dhoni has shown his mettle. Abhijit Chatterjee, M.S. Unnikrishnan and Shiv Kumar write on facets of the dashing cricketer and his impact

HE is bold. He is bright. For a cricket-loving nation he is a harbinger of good times. He has helped mould a team, which was slipping, into a fighting squad willing and able to take on the best in the world. In just one year, India’s ODI captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has set new standards of performance. And, as the copy of a popular soft drink says, he has brought home one World Cup during his short stint as captain, even though it is in the Twenty20 format.

In many ways, Dhoni’s career has an uncanny resemblance with that of another accomplished player — Kapil Dev. The similarities are many. Kapil was the first captain of the Indian cricket team to come from a non-metro like Chandigarh. Dhoni, hails from Ranchi. Both became captains of the Indian team at a relatively young age. Both play their game by intuition. And, both lead by example.

There is a major difference as far as their approach to batting is concerned. While Kapil never curbed his instinctive and aggressive batting, Dhoni’s game has undergone a sea change ever since he assumed the mantle of leadership.

How did this young man from Jharkhand get to become captain. Few anticipated that Dhoni would lead the team when India were playing in England last year under Rahul Dravid. Dravid himself had moved into the hot seat when captain Sourav Ganguly was out of both form and luck. According to reports, it was Sachin Tendulkar who suggested Dhoni’s name as vice-captain to the BCCI president Sharad Pawar. Mahi, as he is affectionately called by teammates, has not looked back since September 18, 2007.

Before he took over the captaincy of the one-day squad, Dhoni had already led a young and relatively untested Indian team to an unexpected victory in the inaugural T20 World Cup in South Africa last September. The Indian team was already in the dumps, having made an exit from the ODI World Cup, unable to go beyond the group stage. Senior players like Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid and Anil Kumble had opted out of the T20 World Cup. This was a blessing in disguise as it paved the way for the youngsters who grabbed the chance and excelled in a tournament, which the BCCI was reluctant to enter in the first instance.

Once this young team won the title, the players were catapulted to top of the popularity charts. For a team, which had no proven record of playing this version of the game, Dhoni marshalled his boys well and inspired every player to give of his best.

In the T20 final against arch-rival Pakistan, Dhoni was guided more by intuition than experience. He gave the last over to Joginder Sharma, who had taken a beating in his previous overs. The bowler lived up to his captain’s faith and frustrated Misbah-ul-Haq’s attempt to score the winning run.

The moment he was named T20 skipper, Dhoni made it known that he would like more youngsters in the team who could make up for their lack of experience with their enthusiasm and agility. He followed the same rule when given charge of the one-day squad last year. Now, these youngsters have the opportunity to prepare for the 2011 World Cup because it seems certain that this is the core of the team, for the event to be held in the subcontinent.

The tri-series in Australia earlier this year truly heralded the arrival of Dhoni on the world stage. He again his reposed confidence in younger players and they proved their worth by beating Australia at home. When the team was felicitated by the BCCI on its return from Australia, Dhoni was forthright in his praise: "I thank every member of my team for his commitment on and off the field. We will try to repeat this feat in future."

Former Australian skipper Steve Waugh wrote in one of his columns: "This side is not more talented than their predecessors, but they certainly have more composure than those who played before them."

It was in the IPL where Dhoni’s cricketing and leadership skills were put to test when he led Chennai Super Kings against other squads led by more experienced players like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, V.V.S. Laxman and Virender Sehwag. He emerged with flying colours as he led his team to the final where Chennai Super Kings (CSK) lost to the Shane Warne-led Rajasthan Royals in a nail-biting finish.

It was in this tournament that Dhoni’s true value was discovered when the owners of CSK paid him Rs 6 crore for his services — the highest for any player, Indian or foreign, in the IPL. The IPL experience should stand him in good stead.

More than his leadership skills Dhoni’s metamorphosis as a cricketer is interesting. When he burst on the international scene, Dhoni was seen as a batsman in the mould of Virender Sehwag, willing and capable of taking on any bowling attack with daredevilry. Though Dhoni made his first class debut in 1999, it was only in 2004 that he became a serious contender for the national squad after his performance against Pakistan A in the triangular tournament in Kenya.

Playing in his fifth one-day international game against Pakistan in Visakhapatnam, he cracked a dazzling 148 (it was the highest score by an Indian wicketkeeper at that time), batting even more forcefully that his role model Sehwag. He followed it up with an unbeaten 183 against Sri Lanka in Jaipur where he broke Australian Adam Gilchrist’s record of the highest ODI score by a wicketkeeper.

Dhoni made an immediate impact at the Test level too, scoring 148 at Faisalabad in his fifth Test. Consistent performance through the 2005-06 season saw Dhoni being ranked as the number one batsman in the ICC-ODI ratings briefly, a position he regained after the Sri Lanka tour.

How the responsibilities of captaincy can change a player is best seen in Dhoni’s game after he took charge. His batting has undergone a change. This was best exhibited in the just-concluded series in Sri Lanka where he lead his team to its first series win in the island republic in 23 years.

It is interesting to note though that Dhoni’s batting style may have changed, his scoring rate has not. In the 84 games he played before his captaincy he scored 2,477 runs with three centuries and an average of 42.23 while in the 36 games where he led India he scored 1,316 runs with one century and an average of 54.83.

His batting and keeping skills, together with his charisma, make Dhoni the most marketable cricketer in the country, a fact not lost on the companies that have lined up at his doorstep to get him for endorsing their products. — A.C.