MSD & Me.

[Arthur Crabtree]

First impressions can last a lifetime. When Mahendra Singh Dhoni walked out to practice at the Vidarbha CA Ground, Nagpur on the first of March 2006, he had a larger entourage than anyone else, and longer hair. His walk was quicker than the others, like he expected his companions to keep up with him. He looked determined and in a hurry to get something done. And he smiled his way to the middle. I'd been explaining to my girlfriend who all the players were as they straggled onto the outfield. She said: "This one is the superstar" which triggered that this was indeed MS Dhoni. Whenever she sees him on tv, after all the years, she'll say: "Oh, it's the superstar". Though he looks a a different man now.

Dhoni was about to play his seventh Test and begin his third series, and had recently scored 148 off 153 balls in The Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad, in a high scoring draw. He'd been playing ODIs for about a year with some success and just scored 183* in a one-dayer against Sri Lanka in Jaipur. In India, the excitement that surrounds a player is palpable. Strangers will start a conversation with you about cricket. I was a bit disappointed in my first sighting of Dhoni. I expect my star players to look a bit glamorous, and Dhoni has never looked elegant, even with a bat in his hand. He had a name too many. My view of Dhoni became more nuanced over the years, but he remained the superstar.

Dhoni batted badly in the match, flat batting a couple of catches into the ring, and only had a fifty in the defeat in Mumbai to show for his first series against England. His most memorable contribution to the contest was when he was caught off a skier by Monty Panesar at long off, off Shaun Udal at the Wankhede. The series draw was a good one for England, though it wasn't viewed as such back home, the public still intoxicated by the Ashes win of 05. When Dhoni first came to join us in 2007, England were diagnosed to be critical, which India exploited with a superb series win. But for this to happen, they were reliant on his three hour plus 76* to draw the Lord's test. And the rain.

Dhoni looked a serious player at Lord's in the way he stepped in to do the hard labour of saving the game, and show he was not just a one dimensional hitter. I saw him live at Trent Bridge, and he still had the charisma (the hair had already gone) though curiously he took only one catch in a game legendary for Zaheer and RP Singh's swing. At the Oval, he was in his element, hitting 92 off 81, before hoisting a catch off Pietersen to deep square leg, chasing runs for the declaration. Two very different innings bookended the series.

That tour was under Rahul Dravid. The next time England played India in 2008, Dhoni was in charge for the match rescheduled following the terrorist bombing of Mumbai. In a Test of moderate scores, against Swann and Panesar, Dhoni scored a hugely important 53, taking India from 102-5 to 241, which helped make possible one of India's most famous victories. It was Dhoni's first full series as captain, and a draw at Mohali gave him his first series win. He was to lead India to first in the rankings the following year.

Dhoni was India's Test and all format captain for six years, and it took its toll. Whenever an India player retires, many posts will add, as a repetitive postscript, that he had to deal with the intense scrutiny and immense expectation. But it seems this is just tolerated. Dhoni was a long time on the treadmill, and I have a lot of admiration for his endurance. Where English players are occasionally excused, Indian players just keep going on. Though obviously, the rewards are immense. The next time I saw Dhoni play England he looked a lot older, and a troubled man. Some say he didn't care for Test cricket, but I'm not sure he could have kept going as he did without deep commitment.

By 2011, India were in decline, and when they toured England that year, they were trounced 4-0. Rahul Dravid managed the same feat that Shane Warne accomplished in 2005, being taken to the heart of the host nation for showing sportsmanship, resilience and dignity in defeat. But this series damaged Dhoni in the eyes of this country. His captaincy was ridiculed by experts and idiots alike. His disclaimers after the innings defeat at the Oval appeared supine and forlorn. It seems a little odd now to think that Dhoni started this series not yet half way through his Test career against England. There was a long way to go. And people were saying he didn't care.

And yet, this is where I started to care for Mahendra Singh Dhoni. While people said he didn't motivate himself for Test cricket, he showed me he did, over and over again. Digging in with the bat, in the dire situations where, at times, his captaincy had landed him. As the top order caved in once more, Dhoni occupied the crease, trying to stick his bat into the river of water cascading through the dam. As in his 77 and 74* at Edgbaston, as India slipped away to a defeat by an innings and 242 runs. Futile resistance, sure. But, did he care?

If India wondered how bad it could get, they were about to find out. In December 2012, England won in India, having been 1-0 down. This was considered borderline impossible. England accomplished one of their greatest wins ever on Dhoni's watch. The captain was looking way past his still-fresh date. It looked like he was trying to cope by anaesthetising his senses. He appeared blank in the field, and numb and distant in front of the press. As if he was trying to deal with the pressure by not accepting the truth of what was happening in the middle. But even so... playing England at Nagpur again, after all these years, his 99 (he never scored a Test ton against England) took India from 71-4 to 295-7, adding 198 with his successor as captain, Virat Kohli, and gave India another day to dream of saving the series.

What we now know was Dhoni's final tour of England ended ignominiously with three defeats after the early exhultation of a win at Lord's. (He and I unknowingly said goodbye as spectator and player after the dire draw in Nottingham.) But Dhoni still made runs at numbers six and seven, even when his team mates were pre-beaten, most notable his 82 at the Oval, the series already gone, and coming in with 28-4 on the board. He was his sides' second top scorer in the series, though sadly he ended with a duck, Chris Woakes' fifth Test wicket.

And now it's all over. Twenty-one matches, an average of 33 and a rather neutral strike rate of 50. Is that all there is, to Test cricket (then let's keep on dancing)? Maybe first impressions last because they are naive and serene. The carefree superstar is coming to the end of his sporting life. He has taken many blows to his body and his mind has lived under strain for so long that it seems normal. He is a rich man. I don't know how a person with the mental alacrity to count down the micro-seconds at the tail end of an ODI, keeping a diversity of shots still possible to the last possible fraction of time; and with the sang-froid and cunning to start off a run chase, with the required rate spiralling out of sight, by playing out a maiden...; I don't know how that man can fill and empty the third man position so repetitively and pointlessly as I watched him at Trent Bridge in 2011.

I suppose, people are just complicated. But if all of that means nothing, I'll leave it at this. In that same Trent Bridge Test, Ian Bell was run out as he walked off for tea. Quite justifiably run out. And I think it was wrong of the England coach and captain to lobby the Indians for his reinstatement. But Dhoni did as they asked. Not because he really had to. But I like to think, because he thought it was fair, and even well into a career of squeezing the marginals, of putting your heel on the throat of your enemy, and keeping it there, he just thought it was the right thing to do.

[Dr Cricket]

Good post.
Dhoni with the bat was a fighter and a underrated batsman at number 7.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/australia-v ... 15069.html
the crazy statistic is that in the history of indian cricket only 2 players have ever really scored runs at number 7 Kapil Dev and MS Dhoni.
no other player has scored more than 800 runs in that position.
Kirmani and Shastri are 3rd and 4th in the list.
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine ... pe=batting

[Arthur Crabtree]

Interesting stats Bhaveshgor. If MSD only averaged 30 at seven, he must have a pretty good record elsewhere in the batting.

I remember when keeping and captaining were considered too much for one person to do. That seems to have been forgotten over Dhoni's captaincy.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Dhoni is the sixth highest scorer at seven. Of the five above him, all are keepers and four are Aussies.

[ddb]

Good stuff Arthur.

[from_the_stands]

Good read, AC. As good as Dhoni was, he was no Gilly.

[Dr Cricket]

not sure anyone could ever match Gilly.

[KipperJohn]

Top drawer Arthur.

[shankycricket]

Good stuff AC. As much as I despise Dhoni the captain, he was definitely a very decent test cricketer overall and arguably India's best wicket keeper batsman ever.

[Dr Cricket]

Good stuff AC. As much as I despise Dhoni the captain, he was definitely a very decent test cricketer overall and arguably India's best wicket keeper batsman ever.

Yet you think he didn't care about Test cricket.
He may be a crap captain but far from the truth to say he did like or care about test cricket.

Also I actually think the 2007 world cup defeat is worse than the overseas test defeats for one it is quite common for teams to lose abroad in test especially to Eng, Australia ETC but very rare and humiliating to lose against minnow and to lose in the first round of a world cup event and actually go home after a 2 weeks in 8-10 week competition where all the other players and teams are still playing.

the only thing that will mirror the 07 World cup in test is if India loses to bangladesh/Zimbabwe or even worse Ireland/Afghanistan.

Also the World cup is a global event which in my eyes is always above any bilateral series.

[shankycricket]

Good stuff AC. As much as I despise Dhoni the captain, he was definitely a very decent test cricketer overall and arguably India's best wicket keeper batsman ever.

Yet you think he didn't care about Test cricket.He may be a crap captain but far from the truth to say he did like or care about test cricket.

Also I actually think the 2007 world cup defeat is worse than the overseas test defeats for one it is quite common for teams to lose abroad in test especially to Eng, Australia ETC but very rare and humiliating to lose against minnow and to lose in the first round of a world cup event and actually go home after a 2 weeks in 8-10 week competition where all the other players and teams are still playing.

the only thing that will mirror the 07 World cup in test is if India loses to bangladesh/Zimbabwe or even worse Ireland/Afghanistan.

Also the World cup is a global event which in my eyes is always above any bilateral series.

I still do. The two are completely different things.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Cheers chaps. Thanks for reading such a long piece. I wasn't really trying to get at how good Dhoni was (though obviously I think he was plenty going for him) but more of sense of how he seemed, and how we pass through time with these people in a way you don't with many other spheres of entertainment.

Maybe i should have touched on his variable keeping a bit, and the showboating of taking your pads off and bowling. For a keeper/captain, throwing down the gloves and doing it yourself is the ultimate, nuclear option.

[Making_Splinters]

Whenever a player retires there seems to be an urge to hyperbolise over his achievements. Dhoni was an average test batsman, an average test keeper and an average test captain. When the dust settles will anyone argue that he was a better gloveman than Kirmani? A better captain than Ganguly or Gavaskar? They certainly won’t be arguing that he was one of India’s best batsmen.

When he retires from ODI cricket let the plaudits be sung, but don’t overstate the average.

[Arthur Crabtree]

I think the only hyperbole in here refers to one day cricket. Or the only extravagant claim refers to limited overs, I'm not sure that's hyperbole, because he's an ODI legend. And I balance that a pretty strong criticism of his captaincy. It's sentimental, but that's me.

It isn't a cold, analytical look at his standing in the game. Though if i did try that I don't think I'd describe him as average.

But fair enough. maybe I did overstate.

[Dr Cricket]

I wonder how you rate Matt prior then.