Chennai’s next match was against Rajasthan Royals in Jaipur where they were welcomed with a green-top. This was exactly the scenario in which Chandrasekhar had asked Dhoni to field first. Dhoni won the toss again, and he elected to bat again, much to the team director’s chagrin. As it turned out, Pakistan’s wrong-footed left-armer Sohail Tanvir cleaned up CSK with a magical 6/14, which still stands as the best bowling figures in the IPL. Chennai made only 109, which Rajasthan, after a stutter, chased down within fifteen overs. As the team made their way back, a livid Chandrasekhar made an announcement in the bus that the captain and coach would have to meet him as soon as they reached the hotel.
‘That was year one, and I was behaving like I had been given a fabulous team and the team could do anything but lose. I suddenly found myself to be a taskmaster, not realizing that I was standing in front of some international greats. But it somehow didn’t matter to me then,’ he recalls.
Dhoni and Kepler Wessels, who was CSK’s coach for that first season, showed up duly in front of Chandrasekhar, who let it rip and gave them both a piece of his mind, which he says ‘wasn’t very pleasant’ and then walked away. Dhoni said nothing.
‘Next day on the bus, I looked him in the eye and said, “Ah, I think I must have been a touch angrier than I should have.” Dhoni looked at me and said, “You were very, very, very, very angry . . .” and moved away. I couldn’t make anything out of that face. It was just a reminder that he hadn’t changed one bit from our first meeting,’ says Chandrasekhar.
Two things stood out for him that day, and they give us another window into the myriad ways of the Dhoni mind. He’d shown Chandrasekhar the respect he deserved as a former cricketer and to his position as CSK team director by politely brushing away the issue. But not without reminding him of his temper.
‘He didn’t have to show that he was a subservient kind of guy. Here’s a World T20–winning captain and a big name getting thumped by a team selector, that too in front of the coach who’s an outsider. But it didn’t matter to him. He was just there doing a job. He could have turned his face around and said that wasn’t the way to behave or said so many things to me, but he was like, okay, it happened, done and dusted, let’s move on,’ says Chandrasekhar.
It’s also perhaps a case of Dhoni never having been one for a confrontation. He’s not been one to indulge in a mouthy exchange to get an upper-hand in a debate either, not in the public space anyway. He’s always fought his battles at his own pace, in his own way, and with the subtlety of a diplomat, even if it’s not always been through diplomacy but loaded wisecracks and puns. But it can often be so obscure that probably even those it’s intended for don’t get it. Or like he did with Chandrasekhar back in 2008, when he’s put on the spot or criticized, he responds with the same, strong message—silence.
There is a thin line between being strong-willed and being adamant. Dhoni has tiptoed and criss-crossed that line repeatedly as a captain. It could happen while backing a player or while doing his best to show up one that he didn’t back. Rarely did he take off his pads and come on to bowl without it being a signal to the selectors about what he felt about the bowling arsenal at his disposal. Speaking of signals, Chandrasekhar recalls one that came his way back in 2008, soon after his outburst in the bus.
‘I told him once you and I need to have a small chat after this game and he said, “Where do I have the time?” That was his defensive way of saying, “Let’s not discuss things. Leave it. I am okay with doing what I am doing.” That’s when I realized that here is a guy who’s going to be very adamant with what he wants to do . . . that’s the reason why he would be successful in the years to come . . . because he had his own mind and he did not let other people mess around with it,’ the former selector says. In 2016, when the World T20 tourney came to India, it was the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) turn to find out that you simply can’t force Dhoni’s hand and make him do something he doesn’t want to do.
The ICC and the broadcasters had come up with an idea before the event where they would get the captains of each team to read out their playing XIs into the microphone once the toss was done. As it turned out, India took on New Zealand at Nagpur in the opening game of the tournament. The first captain who would have to play the role of the makeshift announcer was Dhoni. But when the request was made to him, his answer was, as always, short and to the point. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he’s learnt to have said. Just like that, the ICC’s grand idea was dropped.
Dhoni had played all of three insignificant ODIs against Bangladesh at the time he made that dramatic late-night appearance outside Chandrasekhar’s room. He didn’t make much of an impression in the match that followed, scoring 3 off 9 balls on a bouncy Hyderabad pitch against a pacy Pakistan attack. But less than a week later, he was back in the then united state of Andhra Pradesh for what would prove to be a seminal moment not just in his life but in the history of Indian cricket. The 148 against Pakistan in Vizag on 5 April 2005 signalled the emergence of India’s new cricketing superhero.
‘I remember the Rajasekhara Reddy stadium in Vizag then was not finished and they had makeshift stands. The ball kept disappearing out of the ground very quickly, very often. Until then I had only seen Tendulkar’s bat look as broad as a wooden bureau while connecting with the ball, especially when he hit shots past the bowler or extra cover. He had that Tendulkar thing about him,’ Chandrasekhar says, recalling that stupendous knock against Pakistan.
Over the next two years, Chandrasekhar would play a crucial yet unsung role in shaping Dhoni’s career, though he may have been unaware of it back then. His first contribution came during a selection meeting in Chennai later that year to pick the Test squad against Sri Lanka. Tamil Nadu’s Dinesh Karthik had at that point cemented his spot as India’s No. 1 wicketkeeper in the longer format since his debut exactly a year earlier. But he’d hardly done much with the bat in those ten Tests, averaging a mere 18.84 despite having been touted as a prodigious talent.
Not for the first time in his life and career, Dhoni had to fight the burden of the stereotype. He neither looked like nor, more importantly, seemed to have the game for Tests. He hadn’t helped his cause with the breakneck speed at which he’d scored his 148 and 183 against Sri Lanka in the ODIs a few months earlier. The Karthik vs Dhoni debate was one that the More-led committee just couldn’t make their mind up over.
‘He’d already brought a massive change to India’s batting in ODIs and I thought he could do the same in Tests. But I then said I leave it to the captain (Rahul Dravid) to decide. He said, “DK (Dinesh Karthik) has done really well but at this point of time somebody like a Dhoni would make a really big difference,” and it all ended there. That was the first time I was involved in Dhoni’s selection,’ says Chandrasekhar.
That was only the first time. Two years later, he would play an instrumental role in redefining the geography of cricket fandom in the country. He would give Chennai their new Thala, and the city would never stop whistling again, even if he looked and sounded as alien to them as they did to him. The IPL storm was about to hit India. Cricket in the country would never be the same again.
Around a year after their first meeting, Chandrasekhar’s term in the selection committee was over and he didn’t come across Dhoni again till 2008. In that period, Dhoni had captained India to the first-ever World T20 title and emerged as the new poster boy of Indian cricket. India Cements, meanwhile, had become the owners of the Chennai franchise in the IPL. And Chandrasekhar was appointed in charge of all cricket operations.
The first month or so in his new role, he reveals, was spent sorting out the innumerable logistics involved with setting up a T20 franchise in India. He was also getting used to hearing about ‘absurd amounts of money’. It’s a good thing he was, for very soon he would be dealing with ‘absurd amounts of money’.
The first-ever IPL players’ auction took place on 20 February 2008 at a plush hotel in Mumbai. Chandrasekhar recalls having been hand
ed a carte blanche by N. Srinivasan, the India Cements chief, to pick whoever he wanted, while the others on the auction table were clearly told to just sit and watch him raise the paddle.
But that free hand would be tested a few days before the auction, when the boss himself had a disagreement with Chandrasekhar’s choice. ‘I told him I wanted Dhoni. He was keener on Sehwag. I told him Dhoni was going to be the next biggest youth icon in the country and a big-ticket for our franchise, sounding as confident as I could. But he still kept saying Sehwag. By the next morning though, he had changed his mind—the first thing after waking up, he told me over the phone that he wanted Dhoni,’ VB recalls.
Then the CSK management had to take a call on how much they would be willing to pay for Dhoni. On the eve of the auction, the predictive market rate for the most popular cricketer in the country was going up by USD 100,000 almost every fifteen minutes. When the team management meeting started on the eve of the auction, it stood at USD 1.3 million. But every time the team director worked out and adjusted the cut-off price accordingly, Rakesh Singh—now the company president and then the marketing president of CSK—would tell him it’s gone up by another decimal point of a million. At USD 1.6 million, Chandrasekhar believed they had broken the bank only to be informed that the Dhoni stocks had risen by another 0.2 million.
‘Rakesh told me with a wicked smile that “VB, it’s 1.8 million now.” I said, “Okay, let Mumbai have him. That way they’ll have Dhoni at one end, Tendulkar at the other and be left with some 400 dollars to fill up the rest of their team.” Honestly, it was only later that I realized that USD 1.5 million meant Rs 5 crore,’ he says. Srinivasan, though, was by now adamant and the next morning, which was the auction day, he even made Chandrasekhar promise that he would give him Dhoni.
‘He couldn’t come for the auction before midday since he was performing his father’s death anniversary ceremony in the hotel. But he said by the time he arrived, we should have Dhoni.’
Dhoni’s base price was USD 400,000. The exchange rate on that day was Rs 39.84 to the dollar, and it tells you how cyclopean the growth has been both in terms of the money that the players, even the average ones, get bid for and, of course, about the dollar to rupee ratio. It didn’t take too long for the bidding to reach the millions. At around the USD 1.2 million mark, all other teams dropped out of the race, leaving Chennai and Mumbai in a paddle-raising shootout. And it’s here that Chandrasekhar decided to employ a ‘playing possum’ strategy to outfox his rivals.
‘I was making the auctioneer call out twice before I raised the paddle and just as he was about to bang the hammer down. Every time Mumbai shot back, I would hesitate, look around like I am not going to do this, like this is too much and I am about to give up, and then raise it again,’ he says. Around him, at his table, panic levels were going through the roof as they kept reminding Chandrasekhar that the boss wanted Dhoni at any cost. They were either not aware of or didn’t agree with his tactics of not showing his hand or his team’s desperation to get the man from Jharkhand.
When Mumbai took it up to USD 1.4 million, Chandrasekhar hesitated for so long that he recalls that the Ambani-led auction table almost began to celebrate, and that’s when he pulled the trigger again and took the price up to 1.5 million. That was it. Mumbai backed out. Dhoni was a Super King. It’s only fitting that Dhoni was bought by CSK with a very Dhoni-esque bidding strategy.
A few minutes later, just before the auctioneer called for a recess, Srinivasan entered the auction hall. Chandrasekhar recalls how he came straight to the CSK table and gave him a big hug. “He was super charged up and beaming like a child who’d got what he wanted. I had to tell him politely, “Sir, the auction is not over yet. We need to contain our joy a little,” and he said, “Yes, yes, of course,”’ VB says, laughing.
The auction came to an end and CSK finished with a reasonably strong squad. But Chandrasekhar and Srinivasan were now bracing for a barrage of questions from the media about why they had spent so much on one player.
‘I just told him to say that it was because Dhoni is priceless. Exactly 30 seconds later, a camera was on him and a mike was stuck into his face. He flashed a smile and said just that. “He’s priceless.”’
A decade later, even ‘priceless’ sounds like an understatement for what Dhoni has brought to CSK. That’s not to say that it has been a completely one-sided affair. Dhoni’s brand appeal, as gargantuan as it is already, wouldn’t have broken such barriers across the country if he hadn’t made Chennai his cricketing home. No other celebrity, cricketing or otherwise, from the northern part of the country had ever made such a clean break and entered the Tamil psyche in Chennai, nor had they opened the door wide for anyone else like they did for him. The love and adoration for Sachin Tendulkar was universal and he has probably won more hearts in Chennai—one of his most successful grounds in the country—than anyone else in Indian cricket history. But somehow, even the Tendulkar brand has never quite breached the rather partisan local market in Tamil Nadu, like the Dhoni brand has. Dhoni has played his part too, buying the Chennai franchise of the Indian Super League (ISL) football for good measure to make himself even more of a Chennaiyan.
His proximity to Srinivasan—a major collateral of his association with CSK—though has always been a matter of great intrigue, speculation and, often, controversy. The 2013 IPL fixing scandal was only the tipping point. A year before that, Srinivasan, then in the capacity of BCCI president, was alleged to have personally saved Dhoni’s captaincy reign after the then chief selector Mohinder Amarnath reportedly wanted a change.* This came after India had suffered 4-0 drubbings in England and Australia. Srinivasan admitted to this recently in Rajdeep Sardesai’s book Democracy’s XI where he’s quoted as saying, ‘Yes it is true that I vetoed the decision to drop Dhoni as captain. How can you drop someone as captain within a year of his lifting the World Cup? What you call favouritism I say is my respect for a top-class cricketer’s achievements.’
Chandrasekhar was with CSK for only the first three seasons of the IPL and gave up his role after the 2010 IPL which saw his team’s maiden title win. And he recalls Srinivasan being very fond of Dhoni. ‘There was something about Dhoni that he felt was almost like him, maybe in his younger days. It was something about him that N. Srinivasan really liked even back then,’ he says.
Chandrasekhar says there’s a similarity in the way both of them always thrived on being in the present and not worrying too much about what had taken place in the past. ‘After that loss in Jaipur where I had lost my cool, I came back to Chennai still smarting. Srinivasan looked at me and said, “Why the long face, VB? Let me tell you something. These guys are paid professionals. They are paid to perform and that’s what they will do. No point in you sitting like that,”’ VB recalls.
Democracy’s XI also has Dhoni on record about his relationship with Srinivasan, and the Gurunath Meiyappan issue. While denying having told the Mudgal committee—which had been appointed to probe the fixing scandal—that Srinivasan’s son-in-law was a ‘cricket enthusiast’, he clarifies that he’d only said that Meiyappan ‘had nothing to do with the team’s on-field cricketing decisions’.
Some in the CSK set-up, who didn’t want to be named, testify to this fact. For starters, they say that Dhoni, who has never been known to be much of a planner for T20 cricket, would not even hold team meetings. ‘Dhoni doesn’t do team meetings. Fleming used to do a bowlers’ meeting at CSK. Dhoni used to say, “You guys have the meeting, let me know about the plan. Don’t worry at all. If your plan fails, I have other plans.” He never goes for team meetings,’ says one of them.
According to one member of Dhoni’s close circle, he makes it a point to announce the playing XI only once the team is inside the bus and there are no officials around. Incidentally, English seamer David Willey when asked during the 2018 IPL when he finds out whether he’s playing or not would reveal, ‘probably at 4 o’clock in the afternoon when MS wakes up’.
‘I me
t him post that pre-tournament press conference in Mumbai at the 2013 Champions Trophy in Cardiff where India were playing their first match. He came after practice, smiled, and hugged me, and I said, “I’m really happy.” He said, “Why?” I said, “Teri hasi gayee nahi hai. (Your smile has not vanished.)” The genuine smile is still there. He said, “Dil saaf hai, hasne mein problem kya hai? (The heart is clean, so why can’t I smile?),”’recalls one of his closest friends in the media community.
Kiran More believes that while Dhoni never changed who he was; his entry into Indian cricket and his subsequent rise caused everyone around him to change the way they functioned. And most of it was for the good. It wasn’t just in terms of what was happening on the field, but also on the periphery. At the ground level, Dhoni changed the way training sessions were held, and made it a more flexible process rather than just have the entire team turn up every time regardless of whether they were keen on it or not.
‘It (the training session) used to be compulsory. It’s not about taking anything lightly but working hard on areas where you need to work hard. Some people don’t like to practise too much. Earlier, they would be forced to show up, but because Dhoni wasn’t always someone who needed a long hit before a match, others too started making more out of practice sessions than just going through the motions,’ says More.
He believes that while Dhoni was at the helm, even the BCCI had to change their act because of the invisible wall the captain always seemed to be surrounded by. Not only did he never allow the administration—despite his closeness with Srinivasan—to get the better of him; he never let them compromise on the free hand he sought as the leader of the team.
The Dhoni Touch Page 17