‘He might have asked for gag orders on the players in terms of the media, which I believe was needed at that point, but he made sure his communication with the board was clear and there was no room for anyone to play games,’ More explains. ‘That’s why I say he ended up changing the structure of Indian cricket.’ That’s probably why More believes that M.S. Dhoni’s career should be turned into a case study.
Chandrasekhar recalls having had to change his approach to get through to the CSK captain, and by the third season, he felt he’d cracked the code. He’d realized that if you force an idea on Dhoni, he would just ignore both you and the idea. But if you as a coach or support staff would leave it open-ended, there was a chance he might at least consider using it.
So when in the 2010 season, Chandrasekhar found Sri Lanka’s magician spinner Muralitharan to be struggling slightly with the ball, he decided to drop a suggestion to Dhoni, very gently.
‘He was getting Ashwin to bowl four overs straight up and Murali would come in right after the strategic break by which time the batsmen would be ready to unwind and they were going after him. Dhoni agreed that Murali was short on confidence,’ says Chandrasekhar. It was only natural, he adds, that the off-spinner’s confidence was shattered, considering Dhoni would clobber him repeatedly in the nets during practice to the extent that Murali would come and tell the director with awe: ‘The bugger is a monster.’
Chandrasekhar’s view was that Ashwin could be stopped after three overs and Murali given his first over before the strategic break. Since the batsmen wouldn’t generally risk losing a wicket—at least based on the trend back then—before the break, they might play Murali out and allow the legend to settle into his spell better.
‘I said that and left it at that. Come the next game, believe it or not, he did just that. Now I couldn’t go and tell him “thanks for listening”. He would have definitely stopped doing it in the next match,’ he quips. But it was a lesson for Chandrasekhar and subsequent coaches or team mentors on the best practices of presenting M.S. Dhoni with an idea—always as a passing suggestion rather than as a strong idea. It’s no surprise then that the likes of Gary Kirsten and Stephen Fleming—and to an extent, even Duncan Fletcher—gelled so well with the Dhoni style of captaincy. They were all great cricketers in their own right but when it came to Dhoni, they preferred chipping in rather than weighing in when they had a suggestion to make.
Off the field, Chandrasekhar and Dhoni hit it off, but like most other relationships of Dhoni’s, except within the handful in his circle, it was a case of not too far and not too close. At night the two would cross paths as Dhoni would be heading out for dinner and Chandrasekhar would be getting done with his sandyavandanam (evening prayers). ‘I would have just smeared my forehead with ash and I would see him walking past with a Raina or someone else. I would say, “Why don’t you take me along?” He would look at my forehead and say, “I don’t want to spoil you,”’ says Chandrasekhar. Another time, Dhoni ended up giving the team director a lesson on Indian history, his own version anyway. He told Chandrasekhar that his close friend—Arun Pandey—was a Pandit too, like the team director. So when he was asked what he was, Dhoni quipped, ‘We are the ones who were ruling this country before you Pandits took over. I am a Rajput.’
Chandrasekhar also recalls the time Dhoni tried explaining to him about his love for bikes, and then midway realized he was getting nowhere and gave up. ‘He said, “Do you know the feeling of riding at 225 miles an hour and the breeze hitting your chest?” And then he saw my clueless face and decided immediately that there was no point continuing.’ When VB tried to further investigate by asking whether some bikes indeed had seven gears and if one of them was for reverse like in autorickshaws, Dhoni just politely smiled and walked away.
The two hardly met once VB parted ways with CSK before recently bumping into each other during a Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) event. Chandrasekhar was there in his capacity as a team owner, the VB Veerans, and Dhoni was the chief guest. Once they were done with their jesting introductions to each other, Dhoni would tell VB, ‘It’s good to know you have a team. With you around, I know you’ll pick the best team.’
In 2008, when Dhoni took over as CSK captain, he was still only into his fourth year of international cricket. And here he was thrust with the responsibility of leading some of the most celebrated cricketers of that era. With Matthew Hayden, Michael Hussey, Stephen Fleming, Muttiah Muralitharan, Makhaya Ntini and Jacob Oram, Chennai had an all-star lineup. Dhoni might have been the flavour of the season and been bought for Rs 5 crore, but the only team he’d captained at that point was limited-over teams, and for less than a year. So, how did those with much more international experience than the captain look up to him? This was also the first-ever IPL—and this was the first time foreign players were playing in such a league, and that too under a relatively unknown, homegrown captain.
‘From the very beginning I could see these guys settling down under him. It wasn’t a case of them not wanting to hurt Indian sentiments or anything. They genuinely believed they could win matches with him at the helm. They realized, and so did I, that M.S. Dhoni was a natural leader of men,’ says Chandrasekhar.
Convinced he might have been, but Chandrasekhar couldn’t quite get his head around how this young man who’d already broken new barriers in Indian cricket was leading a bunch of international superstars as if he’d been doing this all his life. So, he decided to ask the man himself. And the response he got from Dhoni, Chandrasekhar believes, sums up the man and the enigma.
‘I don’t show them that I’m the captain of the team,’ were Dhoni’s words.
Chandrasekhar then quickly shoots a query at me. ‘Do you still want anything else to prove that he’s different?’ and bursts out laughing.
That Dhoni is different from any other cricketer to have come from India is a fact that keeps proving itself every day that he continues to remain active in international cricket. As someone who’s dealt on a personal level with pretty much every cricketing megastar in the twenty-first century, Chandrasekhar has his own theory: ‘When you meet a Tendulkar, you’ll know he’s a private person but also be hit by his unbelievable humility. A man more private than him was Dravid, polished and who built a career around his phenomenal temperament. Ganguly’s grey cells were always working, not in a scheming way, but you knew he was always thinking. Laxman stood for simplicity while Sehwag defined an uncluttered mind. You could categorize all of them. But how do you put Dhoni in any one column? An enigma is someone whom you can’t understand or comprehend or categorize. And he’s remained unfathomable to me and everyone else.’
But Dhoni’s biggest strength has been that despite being a paradox to the rest of the world, he’s always known exactly who he is. Perhaps that’s why he’s never cared much about what the world has to say about him. And he doesn’t need to knock on your door in the middle of the night to tell you that. For, he is Dhoni.
Those fellows at the Taj President lobby all those years ago did perhaps have a point. Dhoni has never looked like any other cricketer before or after him. He has never walked or talked or batted or kept wickets like anyone else before or after him. He’s also ensured that Indian cricket will never be the same again, not after it has felt the Dhoni Touch.
* Sourav Modak, ‘I Can Proudly Say I’m from Ranchi’, Times of India, 19 January 2013, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/england-in-india-2013/top-stories/I-can-proudly-say-Im-from-Ranchi-Dhoni/articleshow/18081847.cms.
* Arti Sahuliyar, ‘School Basks in Dhoni Glory’, Telegraph, 4 December 2004, https://www.telegraphindia.com/1041204/asp/ranchi/story_4086323.asp.
* G. Krishnan, ‘You Will Never Believe How Many Bikes MS Dhoni Owns’, DNA, 12 July 2017, http://www.dnaindia.com/cricket/report-you-will-never-believe-how-many-bikes-ms-dhoni-owns-2500079.
* Sam Ferris, ‘My Sit-down Chat with India Skipper MS Dhoni’, Cricket.com.au, 1 April 2016, https://www.cricket.com.au/news/feature/ms-dhoni
-samuel-ferris-retirement-question-press-conference-world-t20-west-indies-semi-final/2016-04-01.
* Bharat Sundaresan, ‘Latest from MS Dhoni: Pythagoras in Gloves’, Indian Express, 15 May 2016, http://indianexpress.com/article/sports/cricket/ms-dhonis-pythagoras-in-gloves-ipl-2016-rising-pune-supergiants-2801036/.
* Geeta Pandey, ‘Meet One Indian Ad Firm’s “Top Dog”’, BBC, 19 August 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-37092728.
* ‘Dhoni Sacking Blocked by Board Chief: Amarnath’, ESPNcricinfo, 11 December 2012, http://www.espncricinfo.com/india-v-england-2012/content/story/596796.html.
Acknowledgements
This is a Dhoni book. So it had to be done Dhoni style. That meant I didn’t step on the gas till the required run rate (or in this case the deadline) reached fever pitch. It also meant that the publishers of this book, my dear friend Radhika Marwah in particular, were left anxiously perched on the edge of their seats.
I mainly got the confidence to write the book once Sriram Veera—my colleague, mentor, and someone who I say with full authority considers me the brother he never wanted—put it across simply: ‘Sundu, you anyway are used to writing full-page stories which are around 3000 words each. Think of this as writing fifteen of those.’ In those couple of minutes, Sriram-bhai had rationalized the task at hand in a way only he can. There was no looking back from there.
The man responsible for my writing all those full-page stories, of course, is the only boss I’ve ever had—Sandeep Dwivedi. Sandy Sir has had to deal with those ‘close finishes’ in terms of daily deadlines for the last decade. He believed in me being a cricket writer before I ever did. He kept throwing me into the deep end, and I can’t thank him enough. I owe most of what I’ve achieved in this industry to his support, his trust and, of course, his patience.
My job was cut out from the beginning to somehow unravel a narrative far beyond what’s out there. I bumped into an array of fascinating characters along the way, each of whom had been privy to the Dhoni enigma and his aura at different times in his life. I couldn’t have done this without their help.
Chittu-bhai & Co. in Ranchi provided me a front-row seat as they relived some of their beloved friend’s life events during my visit there, not to forget their unbelievable hospitality. Colonel Shankar Vembu was introduced to me as the person responsible for helping Dhoni pursue his vast military interests. But he perhaps provided some of the greatest insights ever into his fauji friend. I also thank Kiran More, V.B. Chandrasekhar, Prahlad Kakkar and Chocka for their valuable inputs.
Of course, to you, Mr Dhoni; I appreciate how you dealt patiently with my routine presence at almost every practice session you’ve been to over the last eighteen months across the world. Someday, I do hope to get the courage, like you did, to bid adieu to the long mane, or at least get those ‘layers done’ as recommended.
THE BEGINNING
Let the conversation begin…
Follow the Penguin Twitter.com@penguinbooks
Keep up-to-date with all our stories YouTube.com/penguinbooks
Pin ‘Penguin Books’ to your Pinterest
Like ‘Penguin Books’ on Facebook.com/penguinbooks
Find out more about the author and
discover more stories like this at Penguin.co.in
EBURY PRESS
UK | Canada | Ireland | Australia
New Zealand | India | South Africa
Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
This collection published 2018
Copyright © Bharat Sundaresan 2018
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Jacket images © Neeraj Nath
ISBN: 978-0-143-44006-2
This digital edition published in 2018.
e-ISBN: 978-9-353-05168-6
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
The Dhoni Touch Page 18