A few years back, when Mahendra Singh Dhoni would be batting at the end of an innings, one would expect a flurry of shots. Inevitably, the winning stroke would be a six or four—the ‘Mahi’ way—the commentators would explode.
The Australian one-day series was drastically different. After he scored a painstaking 51 off 80-odd balls in the first innings, commentators were quick to castigate him for the slow run rate. Two leading general papers churned out copies saying that it was a good time to blood Rishabh Pant, the second highest run-getter in the Test series.
A week later, he