World Cup 2019: Can India win it for the talismanic MS Dhoni?

India’s World Cup 2019 campaign has kicked off on a winning note with two wins in two matches and as we build up to the rest of the tournament, let us look back at the career of one of the most 'talismanic' cricketers in the current squad – Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

In the late 90s, wicket keeping was perceived to be a thankless job until Romesh Kaluwitharana started changing this belief during the 1996 World Cup. Adam Gilchrist arrived and revolutionized the concept of a wicket-keeper batsman. After Nayan Mongia’s retirement, India struggled to find a wicket-keeper who could also bat well consistemtly. For a period of five years, a number of wicket-keepers were experimented with, until Dhoni arrived and cemented his place.

Dhoni hurried his way into the Indian team in the early 2000s by smashing bowlers out of the park. His first big international game was in 2003 when he, along with Irfan Pathan, toyed with the Pakistan bowling attack, while playing for India A.

In what was literally a brutal attack on the Pakistan team bowlers, Dhoni's no-holds approach earned him a call up to the national squad as a keeper-batsman.

Ironically, Dhoni got run out on the first ball he faced in ODI cricket (Dec 2004 in Dhaka), against Bangladesh. Dhoni was up against left arm spinner Mohd. Rafique and just as he pushed the ball to short fine leg and started running, Mohammed Kaif, the non-striker, sent him back but it was too late. Khaled Mahmud ran him out as Dhoni was out for a duck in his debut encounter.

12 years later, on March 23rd 2016, a magical moment from MS Dhoni knocked Bangladesh out in the last ball of the T20 World Cup semi-final at the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore. Chasing a target of 146, Bangladesh needed 2 runs off 4 balls with 4 wickets in hand. Mushfiqur Rahim, the wicket keeper of Bangladesh tried to finish it off with a six but lost his wicket. Mahmudullah ,the next batsman also fell trying to go for the winning six and holed out to Jadeja.

With two runs to win off the last ball, Dhoni did something which was never done before. Anticipating a bye, he took his gloves off before the ball was bowled. He displayed a high degree of self-awareness and intuition to predict a run out scenario in this context.

The batsman missed the ball and started to scamper for a bye. Dhoni didn’t throw the ball at the stumps. There was a probability that the stumps could be missed via a direct hit. He ran and took the bails off. Thanks to Dhoni’s composure, India won by a run, pulling out victory from the jaws of defeat.

There are multiple instances of Dhoni’s astute mind. With Sachin, Sourav, Rahul and Zaheer opting out of the 2007 T20 World Cup, Dhoni inspired a young team to win the World Cup for India. In the bowl-out tie breaker during the league match against Pakistan, Dhoni opted to use part-timers and Harbhajan Singh, with the regular bowlers certain to be under pressure.

In the last over of the finals of the same tournament, when Misbah-ul-Haq was in top form, he decided to give the ball to the most unlikely choice – Joginder Sharma. It was risky but smart. The other choice was Harbhajan but Misbah had taken a lot of runs off his previous over. Joginder, on the other hand, was an unconventional choice and Misbah had to work up pace.

One of the great qualities of a leader is to visualize positive outcomes in high pressure situations and work with a rational mind to help achieve those outcomes. Dhoni’s move worked as Misbah holed out to Sreesanth and India won its first T20 World Cup.

Between 2007 and 2013, Indian cricket’s “golden generation” (Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Laxman and Kumble) retired. Critics thought that Indian cricket would struggle for a few years of transition to find a similar level of class. However, in the same period, under Dhoni’s captaincy, India had Test series wins in New Zealand and West Indies and tied a test series in South Africa.

India became the first team to whitewash Australia in a Test series after a gap of more than 40 years. India retained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in 2008, 2010 and 2013. In 2009, Dhoni led the Indian team to number one position for the first time in the ICC Test rankings. All these achievements came when Indian cricket was expected to transition and take time to reach the heights set by the Golden Generation.

During his tenure as captain, Dhoni has taken a few bold calls like backing Ravindra Jadeja to be a full time test bowler and Rohit Sharma as an opener in the shorter form. The decision to promote himself ahead of Yuvraj Singh in the 2011 World Cup Final proved to be a masterstroke. Fittingly, he was the first international captain to win all three limited overs trophies (World Cup, Champions Trophy, and T20) and also the No.1 test ranking.

All sports-persons have their share of difficulties and Dhoni was not immune to this. He resigned in the middle of a test series Down Under in December 2014. He seemed to have figured out that test cricket required aggressive captaincy and his style was not working any more. He focused only on limited overs cricket for the next five years. He has successfully groomed Virat Kohli to take over as the captain in all three formats.

One of the criticisms against Dhoni, in recent times, is that he takes the game too deep in chases, which results in the required rate mounting in the final overs. However, let us look at this from another perspective.

By rotating the strike in the middle overs and keeping wickets in hand for the onslaught in the final overs, with the help of hitters like Hardik Pandya and Jadhav, the chances of winning are higher compared to a scenario wherein Dhoni falls cheaply and there are very few wickets left with a high total to chase.

Dhoni’s approach has won more games for India, which includes a 15-run last over finish against Sri Lanka in a tri-series played in the West Indies.

As Dhoni enters the last phase of a glorious international career, Indian cricket fans would love to see Dhoni finishing World Cup 2019 with a winning six and bring the Cup back home. The 2011 World Cup was a farewell gift to the legendary Sachin Tendulkar and Indian fans will be hoping that team India does it again, this time for another legend – Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

Also see - IND vs PAK head to head stats

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