At the wicket, behind the stumps, or in front of a microphone, Mahendra Singh Dhoni almost always performs in a state of affectless calm. A Dhoni outburst is as rare as a quiet, uneventful John McEnroe tennis match.
A stranger to cricket seeing him in action for the first time might even come to believe that Dhoni is an ardent practitioner of the new millennium panacea for all cricketing ills — mindfulness, which is simple, non-judgemental awareness of each passing moment.
As familiar as Dharamsala might be to the man from Ranchi, Dhoni has made the pilgrimage only to the cricket venue; it is unlikely that he has spent any time with Buddhist monks in that picturesque town made familiar to many not by its new, modern cricket stadium but by its most famous resident — the Dalai Lama.
Then again, it may not entirely be true that Dhoni’s celebrated composure cracked suddenly and unexpectedly on Sunday night at the post-match press conference after India’s second successive loss to Bangladesh.
Blame it on fatigue Actually, it was the response of a fatigued leader, a man who is tired in mind and body, one who has come to believe that he may have had enough, if not on the field, then in the presence of the judge and jury (read that media). But the words that rolled off his tongue sounded like rogue waves in a sea of calm.
“If they want to take it [captaincy] away, I am ready to give it away,” said Dhoni. It was not at all clear who “they” were. Did he mean the selectors, the press or the public? Obviously, the latter two, for all their putative power, can do little to alter his status in the team while none of the selectors has said anything adverse about his leadership — at least not in public.
So what was Dhoni up to? Was he testing the waters? “Hey, are you guys okay with me. Do let me know if you are not. I am not exactly in love with the job.” Is this what he really wanted to say?
Two losses to a team ranked No. 8 in a sport played with any sort of seriousness by 10 countries in the world should certainly hurt. But this is a nation where nobody seems to give a damn when the Indian football team loses a World Cup qualifying match to Guam (how many of you know where to look for this U. S. island territory of 1,68,000 in a world map?).
Then again, in India, cricket has always had its own yardstick, a rather special one, even if you don’t believe in the nonsense that it is a religion common to 1.2 billion people.
And Dhoni being Dhoni, has his own paradigm; he is never judged by any realistic benchmark. With his sublime self-confidence — particularly in limited overs cricket — Dhoni has time and again incarnated the superman who powers India to the finish line with customary mojo . He does this quite often with lordly grandeur too, as we saw in the final of the 2011 World Cup in India.
The only captain in history to have won all three ICC trophies (World T20, Champions Trophy and the World Cup), Dhoni has 1,423 runs at a whopping average of 101.64 in the 57 successful ODI run chases under his leadership.
In the event, part of what Dhoni is going through is his own doing; he raised the bar a little too high in his prime as a batsman and a captain. An uber-celebrated icon who negotiated a landmine strewn path — the only path available to any Indian cricket captain — with great aplomb, Dhoni offered the impression that he was invincible in the shorter forms of the game.
When he unburdened himself of the Test captaincy, handing over to the precocious and mercurial Virat Kohli, the general belief was that the diminished responsibility will help Dhoni achieve a twilight flourish in the more popular version of the sport.
Unpredictable
But even then, Dhoni, as experienced as he is, should have expected periodic frustrations to pop up. Sport is far too unpredictable to assure even its finest a fairy-tale finish. It is one area of human activity where randomness rules.
LeBron James, arguably the greatest basketball player since Michael Jordan, just couldn’t deliver when it mattered for Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals; Tiger Woods, after shooting a first round 80, didn’t make the cut at the U.S. Open golf championship.
It happens, you know. And Dhoni does know. It is just that in a rare, unguarded moment he uttered something that might have been dismissed as a joke if it had come from somebody else; something into which too much meaning — most of which is nonsense on stilts — is being read.
Ultimately, the truth is this: Indian cricket still needs Dhoni, the leader. For it might be too soon to saddle Kohli with the responsibility of leading the side in all forms of the game.
“He was upset after the defeat. Leave it there. Don’t put M.S. Dhoni down,” said Sourav Ganguly, as sagacious as ever.
If only the sofa-sunk cricket pundits in India could ever find some perspective and see things for what they truly are instead of what they imagine it to be in their worst nightmare scenarios!
