The first glimpse came four matches and 21 balls into his international career. That morning in Vizag, as Dhoni walked out to the crease in the fourth over, promoted to first-drop ahead of Ganguly, Dravid, and Yuvraj, he was just the latest in the long line of hopefuls in Indian cricket’s search for their Adam Gilchrist.
Gilchrist had, by then, changed the definition of what a wicketkeeper was supposed to bring to a team. He was Australia’s batting spearhead in ODIs and resident battering ram from five-down in Tests. India tried their luck with Ajay Ratra, Parthiv Patel, and Dinesh Karthik, but no one quite gave the soothing feeling of being the one.
While picking Dhoni after a successful India A tour, or promoting him to bat at three against a potent Pakistan bowling attack, Ganguly was merely taking a calculated risk. “Dum hai,” is the only explanation he had for his choices.
We know, now, that Ganguly was right. It is the kind of decision Dhoni probably made a mental note of. Dum can loosely translate to power, but Ganguly meant spark. In cricket parlance, the term most often used for this is x-factor. The physicality of Dhoni sat well with that label. He looked like a rockstar-turned-mountain biker who had accidentally driven his Harley-Davidson into a cricket stadium. His batting technique seemed more suited to baseball. In his first year or so, he batted like a rockstar too. The sound of a ball coming off his bat often felt like that of a firecracker.
But Dhoni’s greatest strength was in his mind. He reduced a cricket match to just that - a game of risk and returns. Statistically, batsmen fail more often than they succeed; bowlers get hit way more often than they beat the bat; and most teams lose more often than they win. As a wicketkeeper, batsman, and a captain, the only yardstick Dhoni set for himself was the ability to turn the percentages in his favour. He was unfazed by failure because he completely acknowledged its presence.
Isn’t it amazing that a batsman we so often associate with the helicopter shot and general belligerence stopped taking unnecessary risks merely three years into his career? While India were looking for their Gilchrist, he showed them he could fit the mould, but yet, told them they didn’t need one for the long run; they needed a version of Micheal Hussey (or Bevan, for those of a certain vintage) instead. Almost overnight, he tuned his batting to suit a finishing role. His leadership, too, is defined by how he reads the game ahead of him rather than where the game is right now.
A lot of times, it feels like Dhoni just gets cricket. In one match, he is literally telling Kuldeep Yadav that the batsman is going to close his eyes and defend; in another, he is giving a risky last over, in the final of a major international trophy, to a finger-spinner. Jarrod Kimber recently wrote this article about how a lot of Dhoni’s decision-making skills, which seem instinctive to many, are based on a keen eye for details and understanding of the vagaries of cricket.
“Dhoni wasn't born with this, he picked it up; step by step. This is learned knowledge, and the easiest way to see is in the decisions he makes. He is brilliant at matchups. Now I don't know if that is his memory, or he's playing the percentages (which he often does), or it's because someone has given him this information. But it's undervaluing his intelligence and game sense to say it's just something within him. He had to know that a certain player would struggle at the death against left-arm spin, and then he needed the calmness of mind to recall it, and if it's a risky strategy, he needs the self-belief to pull it off.”
Dhoni made heroes out of unlikely cricketers because he created a favourable environment for them. Many think of Joginder Sharma and that final, but tune in to the semi-final against Australia and see who bowls a near-perfect last over to Micheal Hussey. In my opinion, Dhoni’s greatest legacy isn’t in the sixes he hit off Irfan Pathan or Nuwan Kulasekara, neither in the blink-and-miss stumpings that have batsmen thinking twice before even stretching too far, but it lies in taking over Indian cricket at a time of uncertainty and leading them to a place where they started entering tournaments expecting to win.
I don’t think it would be fair to say Dhoni taught India how to win, because India won a fair bit under Ganguly, Dravid, and Kumble, but he taught Indian cricket a thing or two about winning when the odds are stacked against them. He introduced a way of thinking where something beyond technical competence could be used to consistently turn matches.
On the 21st ball of his fifth international match, Dhoni hit Shahid Afridi for a four over cover. It was a risky shot against a leg-spinner, but the ball was in the vicinity of his hitting arc. If you didn’t know, you couldn’t tell that this man was maybe on the precipice of getting dropped from the team. His first four innings had fetched him a meagre 22 runs, and a bad series here would certainly have put paid to Ganguly’s experiment. The promise of dum can only get you so far in sport. Afridi probably dismissed it as a fluke from a man batting on 20.
On his 22nd ball, he lofted Afridi inside-out for a similar shot, but this time, even further for a six over cover. Anyone who has played or watched cricket would know that it is one of the most difficult shots to execute. The body has to curve into an unusual shape and generate enough power from that angle to send the ball, moving away from the bat, mind you, over 60-70 yards. Dhoni played it with nonchalance and walked over to Sehwag to share a fist-bump, with his half-smile only slightly wider, but no discernible change in gait.
Dhoni had somehow worked out that Afridi wouldn’t expect him to play either of those strokes and hadn’t kept a fielder on that part of the boundary. Even if he mistimed his shots slightly, the ball would land safely away from any fielder. In that moment, Sehwag, Ganguly, and everyone watching knew.