Mahendra Singh Dhoni will find himself under much more scrutiny as the battle with the visiting Australian team heats up. The test series is being widely seen as a time of transition: When the old guard is ready to hand over the reins to gen-next led by Dhoni, what with Sourav Ganguly already having announced his plans to call it a day in all forms of the game and captain Kumble widely expected to even though he is keeping his cards close to the chest for the moment.
On cue, veteran sports journalist Gul-Fraaz “Gulu” Mohan Ezekiel has decided that it is time for the Dhoni phenomenon to be analysed in greater detail. It is perhaps fitting that Ezekiel lives in a ground-floor apartment in New Delhi.
An upper floor definitely would not have been capable of taking the sheer weight of cricket books crammed into his house! In addition to publications from around the world are the 11 books that he himself has written; seven on cricket. Now, the twelfth, Captain Cool — The M S Dhoni Story, is out.
This includes details on the man and the player — how as a young boy he excelled in badminton, football and cricket at school, how he went on to being voted the MTV Youth Icon, and finally, his ultimate triumph in winning the T20 World Cup.
Ezekiel, who has profiled Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly previously, says Dhoni drew him because he is a combination rarely seen in cricket. “It is unusual for a wicketkeeper to be a successful captain.
So far, only Alec Stewart, who captained England, donned a similar role. It is stressful being a keeper and Dhoni has so much more to handle, the responsibility of captaining Tests (probably soon), One Days and the T20s.”
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There is a distinct style that Ezekiel uses to approach his player profile and it has not been without criticism. All his works are unofficial and written in chronological order with the text often ending up quite loaded with statistics, which can put off readers not versed with the sport.
“I avoid meeting the person I am writing about. I like to have that distance. Sometimes, the moment you meet the person, agents demand a commission. I feel, an unauthorised biography is more honest,” he defends.
But Dhoni’s story makes up for the lack of fizz in the writing. It is a fascinating read all through — right from details as to his origins (he is a Kumaonese though the family is settled in Jharkhand), to his being thrust into a role behind the stumps by accident and how he has handled the limelight, it all makes for a fascinating read. It is not a surprise that for a long time Dhoni has drawn parallels with Kapil Dev, arguably the most successful Indian captain ever.
“Kapil Dev can be said to be similar because he came from Chandigarh, not one of the big cricketing cities. But the key difference between the two is that Dev took more time than Dhoni to rise to prominence.
There are other similarities though. Take the instinctiveness of Dev’s 175 (not out) against Zimbabwe in the 1983 World Cup and Dhoni’s recent 183 (not out) against Sri Lanka. The inspired captaincy is another strand that binds Dev and Dhoni. Dhoni had a run in the T20 World Cup similar to Dev’s in 1983 when everything he touched worked,” says Ezekiel.
It can be said that Indian cricket often leaves one with a nagging sense of frustration. The team’s performance has hardly been consistent and it is anybody’s guess as to what the “mood” would be when it turns up to play. The One Day side under Dhoni has done little to tackle this lack of consistency. But Ezekiel says the fundamentals are there.
“Under Dhoni, I hope all this will change. In the One Day version he has slowed his batting considerably. He takes the team home now. He is having a big say and there has been improvement in the matches. Rohit Sharma and Robin Uthappa could be examples. But it may be more difficult in the Tests. The upcoming series against Australia will see movement in the Test side and we will know after that.”
The aura around Dhoni only grows as one come to the end of the book. There is precious little that one can find are the chinks in his armour. When probed, Ezekiel says: “How far can the instinctiveness go? The pressure will be on, Indian fans are the most demanding.” And that’s an understatement.
CAPTAIN COOL
The M S Dhoni Story
Author: Gulu Ezekiel
Publisher: Westland
Price: Rs 150
PAGES: 128