MS Dhoni retires from Test cricket: An ode to the magnificent

Dhoni’s ability to clear the boundary was revered; his ability to keep calm was celebrated.

By Baiju Joseph

There was a time when the flowing silken hair used to adore the baggy blue. India had found an able wicketkeeper-batsman after a long and agonisingly painful search. With a “no nonsense” attitude, a flair for bikes and being fashionable and a penchant to be aggressive, Mahendra Singh Dhoni  quickly made a place for himself in the cricketing hearts. Dhoni’s ability to clear the boundary was revered; his ability to keep calm was celebrated and his love for milk was envied, frowned at times. Even Pervez Musharraf acknowledged the golden hair of the future Indian captain, asking him to maintain the length.

Soon the golden boy found himself leading a side filled with superstars. He was quietly confident. The ICC World T20 2007 followed. His bowlers were performing, his batsmen were getting runs. Every move Dhoni made turned out to be a master stroke. First, the One-Day International (ODI) side tasted success and then India reached No.1 ranking in Tests. More success was to follow, wins in New Zealand, manyagainst Sri Lanka, and a series win in the West Indies, as well as a stellar performance in South.

The win in the ICC World Cup 2011 was certainly the highest point of Dhoni’s career as at that time he was leading a team that was nothing but legendary. It’s not easy to be the captain of a side when each individual in the side was capable of polarising the national opinion in their direction of choice. Yet, Dhoni mustered the trust and loyalty of one and all in the team all the while being passive and understated. The team went on to win the ICC World Cup 2011 after 28 long years and yet all Dhoni did was to handover the trophy selflessly to the jubilant teammates while slipping behind them. The same ritual followed everytime a trophy was won.

And then this story also started to rust along the way. After a series battering at the hands of a resurgent England side, a 4-0 whitewash Down Under ensured that the glory of the World Cup victory was quickly forgotten. Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and then Sachin Tendulkar retired, suddenly Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir started struggling for runs and have never returned to form since. Yuvraj Singh won the battle against cancer but could not reclaim his old glory. Zaheer Khan started looking more like a burden instead of an incisive weapon, and Harbhajan Singh too lost his form. In all this, many new players came in and went, only a few like Virat Kohli, Murali Vijay, Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara to an extent were able to fill in the big shoes left behind by the big five, while the likes of Ishant Sharma Rohit Sharma and others are still struggling.

The flowing hair of the yesteryears, have now grayed. The transition, the workload and the amount of cricket while having to maintain the team’s winning ways have taken a toll. The old swagger has made way for arrogant silence; the moves he now makes are overtly defensive and lack imagination. Many a times the opposition has slipped away, inflicting demoralising defeats. Yet adversity still never perturbs him. He has been criticised for his unimaginative brand of cricket of late, but when one has so less to choose from, how can a man, irrespective of his reputation, hold onto his own? Indian bowling stocks have always looked at the bottom, batsmen are young and raw, they have  deficiencies, they give the opposition bowlers a lot to work with, the spinners have been largely in-effective outside the subcontinent, and yet behind the wickets, Dhoni stands, day in and day out, leading this side. Dhoni knows about the frailties and the problems his team faces, but as a true leader, shores them up emotionally and stands as a pillar of support for each and every one around.

Along the way came some good times and some bad times, and yet Dhoni faced them all with an emotionless majesty. At times his demeanor and detachment reminded us of some saint at peace with himself, never revealing the anguish within. After an emotionally draining eight years or so, he has now finally decided to call it quits from Test cricket. The team before him had its own set of issues and the team Dhoni is leaving now has its own. Dhoni was missed back then and he will be missed more than ever now. There would be many players who would come and many who would leave but none have been as magnificent as Mahendra Singh Dhoni, and his statistics notwithstanding, the generations to follow will remember him as one of the best to have led team India.

Complete coverage of MS Dhoni’s Test retirement

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