Thursday 18 / April / 2024
The gilt-edge declaration made by Sri Lankan coach Nic Pothas that “they are very All-Black-like” stands out among the slew of 24-carat appreciation of the performance of the Indian team in the just-concluded tour of Sri Lanka, but when it comes to hype on individuals there’s nothing like the high-decibel endorsements of MS Dhoni made by coach Ravi Shastri and skipper Virat Kohli.
Shastri’s comment that the 36-year-old former skipper was not “even half finished yet” at the end of the fourth match, which was the 300th ODI played by Dhoni, bordered on the rhetoric, but Kohli’s “you will always remain our Captain” Instagram update after presenting the legend with a memento to mark the milestone had a convincing ring about it.
The hype and high-praise came after three significant performances put in by Dhoni, one after another. There was no hint of power, or any other special effect we got to witness from the man in the past, in any of the three innings that won him accolade and shut up his critics for now.
Even the “Dhoni cool” we got to watch in the series was unlike anything we were familiar with in the past. Still, Dhoni was the toast of the team. What he did, and what he didn’t, to be where he is now sums up the art of growing old and useful, gracefully.
The new Dhoni cool seems to stem from a clear perception of the new, evolving reality by the legend. Moments that defined the making of the new reality for Dhoni were quite a few in the recent past. The surprise we were treated with in June in the opening encounter against Pakistan in the Champions Trophy was of course the most striking of them all. Hardik Pandya walking out to the middle to bat ahead of the famed finisher, with India in a strong position of 285 in the 47th over, was unthinkable even as it happened on that June 4, but when Pandya walked back to the dressing room having plundered 20 runs off just six balls, hitting three sixes in a row in the last over, the picture of the new reality looked real and pleasingly evolved.
If the Champions Trophy defined the moment of the new reality, the Sri Lanka series redefined it — not in the loud manner as it happened in June, but with the same degree of purpose.
Dhoni needed two runs to complete his 66th half century when Lasith Malinga ran in to deliver the fifth ball of the final over, the call as he pushed the ball to long-on and ran was for two, but Manish Pandey refused to run the second and, instead, chose to face the last ball.
That, a junior partner denying Dhoni the strike off the last ball, was impossible even in dreams in the past, and the familiar image we had of those days was that of the junior sacrificing his wicket to for the famed finisher. Not now. Not Pandey or Pandya.
And this is what Dhoni often talked about in the past: the lack of guys ready to do the finisher act and how such shortcomings stopped him from playing the game the way he wanted. Dhoni seemed to be at peace with the new reality as he stood at the non-striker’s end ready to run the single that took Pandey to a half century. If it’s about how one takes it, half full or half empty, Dhoni seems to score convincingly high and impressively positive.
The last two matches of the tour, the fifth ODI and the one-off T20 game, offered us striking views of how the positive-looking Dhoni could enjoy the fruits of the new reality. India needed two runs off 23 balls in the closing ODI when Dhoni came in to bat and at the crease was Kohli who was well past his century No. 30. In the T20, the target was 10 runs (off 11 balls) away, a well-set Pandey on 39 for company and seven wickets in hand. Ridiculously simple, but if ever life begins at 36, this is how it should be.
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The writer is a freelance contributor based in India. All the views and opinions expressed in the article are solely those of the author and do not reflect those of Times of Oman
