The reiterative chorus extolling MS Dhoni’s captaincy, following his unexpected announcement to step down as the skipper, is quite overwhelming in its intensity. It is also uniform in repetitive testimonials about the timeliness of his decision-making.
The former is well deserving. The latter however rankles even as it exposes – yet again – the fickleness that shrouds perceptions once a player – even one as fabled as Dhoni – seems to start to lose the absoluteness of the position he holds. Thus, though Dhoni’s declaration looked surprising in its timing, its build-up had been gradual making it a pre-determined conclusion.
The beginning of the end
And, this conclusiveness leading to the winding down of Dhoni’s career as a captain can be traced back to 2014, when the Jharkhand-native handed over the reins of Test captaincy to his former deputy Virat Kohli. Under Kohli, Indian Test cricket found renewed purpose. Moreover, as the 28-year-old started to make the team his own – and Dhoni’s imprint on the Test squad faded away – Kohli’s aura of captaincy looked to superimpose itself on the last two skippering bastions that Dhoni held hitherto.
It is in this context of comparisons that Dhoni had to concede his tenure to his younger teammate. His performances in an individualistic capacity as a player had dwindled from the expected levels of consistency, but there was no doubting the mettle of his leadership. But, unlike before, where Dhoni’s captaincy superseded the doubts raised about Dhoni the player, since the advent of Kohli’s mesmerising form, non-showing in the latter heavily scrutinised the aptitude of the former.
Back in 2007, when a certain, long-haired 26-year-old led a bunch of youngsters to triumph in the inaugural World Twenty20, the whole nation felt like it had found an anchor to steady the team that had been teetering under a coaching mismanagement. In the next two years that he cemented his name – and place – for himself, as the skipper, Dhoni made for an intriguing picture in the collage of those thrust with the same charge before him, with his unconventionality seeping through the traditional roles he held with ease.
The captaincy chronicles
Every aspect of his captaincy, right from his on-field decision-making to his witticisms and banter were analysed and picked apart meticulously as if to sharpen the minutest nuances of his personality. Dhoni accepted all of these as his due, which they were. However, as time started to interfere in what had to come to be a too smooth run, the same analyses became a nitpicking fodder for his detractors.
What had been previously brushed aside as insouciance had gone on to be termed as Dhoni’s callousness and disregard. The most recent of this turncoat verbalisation came about after India’s loss in the semi-final of the 2016 World Twenty20 to West Indies when Dhoni overturned an Australian reporter’s question about his retirement plans by counter-questioning him after having asked him to join him on the dais.
Capitalising on misgivings
Dhoni’s unorthodoxy was seen as an indication of his frustration bubbling over and in those few minutes, from being the country’s most prolific skipper, he was relegated to an incumbent biding his time until either he made his way for his successor to takeover or was administratively sidelined under a pretext as several of his previous fellow captains had experienced.
Most significantly, in the same time-frame, the skipper who had previously held high honour of having won two World Cup titles became a passing fad for the sport’s audiences, belying all the emotions he had evoked in them until that moment. And, those which seemed to have been invoked again now following his stepping down, in their nostalgia.
The selectors too did not shy away from borrowing from the fans’ expressiveness. “I salute him for his sense of perfect timing. He knew that Virat is now a proven customer who has done exceptionally well as a leader in Test,” the national selection committee chairman, MKS Prasad said commending Dhoni’s decision, before continuing, “So it is a correct decision by Dhoni. It showed that he had the best interest of Indian cricket in his mind.”
While the focus shifts to the potentiality of brighter future of India’s cricketing aspirations under Kohli, the transition of Dhoni from “Captain Cool” to skipper non grata will however help him rebuild his playing career that had seemed to have gotten lost in the animating ride of his captaincy. It will also be the 35-year-old’s second coming as a player, over a decade after he established his credentials as one; long before the lure of cricketing pilotage beckoned him to dizzying heights in the sport’s stratosphere.