MS Dhoni, the ice-cold enigma who made winning a habit for India

There he stood. A wild, young thing. The overflowing mane. A naughty grin which still retained some innocence.

Oh, he was a charmer. Why he even charmed the then-president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf. Never mind that MS Dhoni had defeated Pakistan at their home in 2006. Musharraf was besotted with Dhoni or more specifically, his hair. “If you take my advice, you look good in this hairstyle”, he told him at the prize distribution ceremony. Dhoni gave the kind of shrug which we would all come to recognise later on. “Sure thing, champ,” he seemed to be saying.

There he ran. More than joy, a quiet satisfaction on his face. The hair still present, billowing in the wind. His teammates around were beside themselves – they had, after all, won a global cricket title after 24 long years. They hugged, they whooped, they jumped. It was unbelievable. But yet with Dhoni, there was more than everything else, a sense of mission accomplished. It had all fallen in place. Somewhere, Dhoni had always known it would.

There he hit. Frozen in the annals of Indian cricketing history forever. He did not move. The Wankhede moved around him. Yuvraj Singh held out his arms at the other end. Dhoni held his pose for one second more, watching as the ball disappeared into the Mumbai sky. And then he did a little jig with the bat. Strutted down the pitch, smiling. Job well done. Sachin Tendulkar ran out. India celebrated. Complete strangers hugged each other. And Dhoni only smiled.

A captain above captains

O captain, my captain. The skipper who won it all. The man who made the impossible possible. A hundred and ten wins in One-Day Internationals for India, under his able guidance. Forty-one wins in the Twenty20 International format. All three major International Cricket Council titles. The CB Series in Australia in 2008. No. 1 in Tests. But India never got tired of winning.

“Process over results”. The Dhoni way. When it suited India, they loved him back. But when it did not, they bayed for his blood. Everything in the past was forgotten. A defensive captain. A captain out of touch with his players. A lucky captain. A captain who played favourites. Accused of not doing enough. Accused of doing less.

So, is it a wonder that the mask slipped? When Dhoni, the master of his emotions, showed that he could be human too? Oh, yes, they were rare and fleeting instances. When the captain, tired of media speculation about rifts, paraded his entire team at a press conference in England during the Champions Trophy in 2009. When a frustrated Dhoni, smarting from India’s loss to Bangladesh in the 2015 ODI series, sarcastically quipped that if he was the one responsible for all that ailed Indian cricket, he would gladly step down as captain and play as a player.

The dearly-loved process

Matches against Bangladesh often did bring that rare side of Dhoni to surface. After masterminding a miracle one-run win over the same opponents at the World Twenty20 in 2016, Dhoni did not hold back again, at the press conference, berating a journalist for being unhappy that India had managed to win.

Needled and annoyed, yes. But never, in his nine-year long career, was he ever unsure. Even when India slipped to losses and whitewashes. Or even when they won one title or another. Dhoni, in the words of Rudyard Kipling, treated triumph and disaster as the same. And, he had a plan. Always. More often than not, it worked. When it did not work, he accepted it. He called out a bad performance when he saw it. He bemoaned what he felt it had not worked. He never shied away from calling out specific players. But even when he did win, he sat content and satisfied, always with an eye on the next match.

Why Dhoni was important

And in a country like India where passions and emotions brim over within the space of a few deliveries, Dhoni brought peace. A calm assurance. The era of Dhoni was the era where Indian cricket won. It was an era where winning started to be taken for granted. Dhoni brought in a mindset where winning was not a unique prize, only received once or twice, but a default setting.

And, so, when an extended period of losses piled up, it felt alien. Perhaps, it felt alien to Dhoni too – maybe that was why he retired from Tests during the middle of the Australia series away in 2014. India’s ODI form recently has not been that bad, but nor has it been that good either. Perhaps, it is for the best for Mahi and perhaps, it was a very simple decision for India’s greatest ever captain: he realised his time was up and he wanted to let Virat Kohli step into the spotlight.

So there goes Dhoni the captain. Into the sunset. The man who made winning a habit for India. Captain Cool. Captain Great. The captain who revolutionised Indian cricket. The end of an era.

But there is hope. Hope of resurgence. At the twilight of his career, Dhoni the long-haired daredevil may yet return, for one last tango. Perhaps, not with the nonchalance with which he first strode on to the world. But, perhaps, with a freedom which he has not had for the last nine years. Unencumbered by captaincy, the dasher may yet return. And thus, that magnificent career will complete a full circle.