Published: May 30, 2011, 11:07 AM (IST)
Edited: Mar 25, 2014, 11:58 AM (IST)
By Karthik Parimal
He is not necessarily the centre of attraction every time his team wins a match nor is his batting deftness required oftentimes, but Mahendra Singh Dhoni‘s adept leadership brilliance is most certainly the glue that holds together any team he leads. The Chennai Super Kings (CSK) under Dhoni’s proficient captaincy have been crowned the champions of the Indian Premier League yet again. This now makes it two in a row for Chennai apart from being the reigning Champions League title holders. They were also the runners-up and semi-finalists respectively in the IPL’s first two editions.
In the international arena, Dhoni began his conquest by taking over a completely new and sophomoric India in the game’s shortest format and led them to a remarkable victory. He later took over as the ODI captain and managed to triumph over Australia in their own backyard. Soon, Dhoni replaced the legendary Anil Kumble as the captain of the Test team and led India to the No 1 position in the ICC rankings for the very first time. Under his tenure, India also managed to ‘clean sweep’ the Australian side. After he led India to a coveted World Cup victory a couple of months ago, Dhoni can arguably be termed as India’s finest captain till date.
In just four years of captaincy, Dhoni has accomplished many firsts this cricket-crazy country has seen. It’s uncharitable to attribute his achievements to pure luck, as some suggest. Although he has the best of players at his disposal, luck cannot be the one and only attribute that has driven him and the team he leads to scale the pinnacles of success.
So what sets Dhoni apart from the rest of them? Why is his success rate better and quicker than his counterpart captains? Certainly, Dhoni tends to manage the fresher and the seniors in his squad well. Everyone is equally involved and the roles are well defined. No player appears to be the odd one out. Like Harsha Bhogle aptly put it, “Dhoni has a way of respecting seniority. He did that with Anil Kumble and with Sourav Ganguly, and made himself invisible when Sachin Tendulkar was having his moment immediately after India won the World Cup.”
You aren’t farther from truth if you consider Dhoni to be a man without emotions. A lot goes on in that busy head of his. He undergoes the same emotions and pressures as any other normal person does. This was evident in IPL 2010 when Dhoni let out his pent-up emotions after guiding CSK to a thrilling win over Kings XI Punjab. Dhoni said, “It was an emotional moment. Your franchise pays so much money for you that you should at least make the semi-finals. With the kind of franchise we have got, the kind of team we have, we should have made it to the semi-finals before this game. So it was an emotional moment, at least for me”. Dhoni has never let his frustration get the better of him be it on or off the field. He carries the same expression regardless of how his team is performing on any given day.
Having said that, he has a very subtle way of expressing his displeasure, if any. For example, Dhoni warned the temperamental Indian seamer Shantakumaran Sreesanth, who has often been accused of on-field arguments with the rival players, to cool it. He tactfully told Sreesanth that there were certain boundaries he should not cross by getting too personal with an opposition player and that if he wanted to irritate someone, that should be the opposition and not his own side.
The best part about Dhoni’s captaincy is his nonchalant yet effective approach. Even in a stage as big as the IPL final, Dhoni candidly said that his team never set any potential target in mind while batting first. This negates additional pressure on the batsmen and consequently leads to every player delivering his natural game. On a much closer look, there weren’t many individual performances that stood out for the CSK in this year’s IPL. It was a team effort all the way. Dhoni has the ability to react to a particular situation suitably. As CSK coach Stephen Fleming said, “Dhoni is not big on much planning. He gets his information from how the pitch plays and how the opposition is approaching it. There’s a lot of gut feel about his captaincy.”
Dhoni is an instinctive captain. His instincts are right most often than not perhaps because of his calm and composed mindset. When a team hits troubled waters, everyone looks towards the captain. If he is chewing his nails and sweating, the whole team is inevitably going to sweat and crumble under pressure. But when the captain looks composed, the team believes there is still hope.
In a very short span of time, Dhoni has carved a niche for himself as an able leader. He has repeatedly proved that success is something that effortlessly happens by doing the right things at the right time. Also, luck, as Samuel Goldwyn once said, is the sense to recognize an opportunity and the ability to take advantage of it.
(If cricket is a religion and has many devotees, Karthik Parimal would be a primary worshipper. This 23 year old graduate student, pursuing his Masters in Engineering, could be an appropriate example of how the layers of what inspires, motivates and keeps one happy run deeply in our daily lives. He, unlike others, is not too disappointed about not making it big by playing for the country, but believes that he plays the sport every day with his heart by watching and writing on it.
