MS Dhoni: From Ticket-Collector to Trophy-Collector
No one is even close to him when it comes to winning trophies as captain. T20 World Cup, Champions Trophy, ODI World Cup, 2 Asia Cups, 3 Border Gavaskar Trophies, 2 ICC Test Maces, 5 IPL titles, 2 Champions League T20 titles and the millions of hearts of his fans from all over the world.
A fitting end to his captaincy career is his leaving captaincy of his home franchise, Chennai Super Kings, where the stadium is a house full even on days when there is just the team and its leader MS Dhoni is training.
There was a trend recently on social media about making every other number relate to the number 7. Like Football has its CR7, in Cricket, there is MSD7.
Playing from a South Indian franchise mostly, the side of India where there was famously one big superstar that ruled the streets, filmstar Rajnikant. However, when the star of MSD shone, it made its name up there with legends like Rajni. The craze on the streets for Dhoni was insane and rightly so.
There are not many captains that would win a T20 World Cup by bowling the last over from Joginder Sharma, or no one would waste umpire’s time to make sure a bowler can come off the bench and bowl, or no one would run to the pitch from the dugout in his 40s to question an umpire’s decision, or to win a must-win ICC tournament game when the other team needed 2 from 3 balls, or despite being known for finishing off games would let Kohli do it because of his great innings.
Such big are the shoes of MSD’s captaincy that even though he gave up the captaincy before the 2022 season and Jadeja took over, but still mid-season, Jadeja handed it back over to MS Dhoni, who led the team to another IPL trophy in 2023.
However, unlike many times, there is controversy regarding the passing of the baton especially in India and Pakistan. MS Dhoni did not only see through a smooth transition from his era to the Virat Kohli era of Indian cricket but now CSK is part of another smooth transition from Dhoni to Gaikwad.
There probably isn’t a more popular cricket stadium DJ than the DJ Zen of Chepauk, whose claim to fame was the great entry songs he played on MSD’s entry, which led to his fame.
Living in Pakistan, You cannot follow Indian cricket that easily. There won’t be proper broadcasters for India’s home series, and rarely for their away series. Due to a long-term contract between PTV and Cricket South Africa, PTV showed India’s tour of South Africa a few years ago, and some hate mongers were using that too. You had to see IPL or India’s series until a few years ago on illegal streams with a thousand popup ads.
So it wasn't easy to follow the peak of some of India’s and even the World’s greatest like MS Dhoni. However, there were always the Pakistan-India games once every year or so. The game that made me fall in love with MS Dhoni was the one mostly famous for Junaid Khan’s new ball spell back in 2012.
Junaid Khan had torn through India’s top order with a breathtaking spell and limited India to 29/5 with the CSK pair of Chinna Thala Suresh Raina, and Thala MS Dhoni at the crease. From there, MSD played a great innings, taking India to 227/6 and winning the Player of the Match despite India losing.
That innings is still the highest score in an India vs. Pakistan ODI by a batter at 7 or lower and again in the Chepauk Stadium.
Another instance where I realized his class was the Champions Trophy final. Again India was probably down and out, but until MS Dhoni was on the crease, I was not fully confident that Pakistan would defeat India in an ICC tournament. There was still some part of me that was unsure and that 2012 Chepauk ODI in my mind.
This is quite a short article, but as Sahir Ludhianvi said:
“Main Pal do Pal ka Shayar Huun, Pal do Pal meri Kahani hai”