About the book

Mahi: The Story of India's Most Successful Captain charts the dynamic rise of one of India's most talented

and charismatic cricketers and captains. From playing tennis-ball cricket in Ranchi and Kharagpur to

his patented helicopter shot, Dhoni has come a long way with his grit and determination. With best

ODI and Test records among all Indian captains to date, it is his simple and down-to-earth attitude

that works wonders for the captain as well as the team.

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This digital edition published in 2014

First published in 2013 by

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Copyright © Shantanu Guha Roy 2013

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Cover Design: Bonita Vaz-Shimray

Cover Photographs: Getty Images

Insert Pictures Courtesy: Rajesh Kumar/Sen Studios,

Getty Images, Shantanu Guha Ray, the Hindu Archive

eISBN : 978-93-5194-012-8

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For

Keya and Bonny

my strength in life

Contents

Prologue

A Humble Beginning

Tennis Ball Cricket

Hard Life in Hills, Glory in Plains

First Job Blues

The Buck Stops Here

Fireworks in the Desert

A Phenomenon Called Dhoni

Chatty Selectors vs Dhoni Power

Wanderers Knight: The T20 World Cup

Wife for Dhoni

Jharkhand Push: Dhoni is our Boy

It’s my Night, India’s Might: The ICC World Cup

A Lone King

About the Author

Prologue

No one leaves business reporting for sports writing. My friends were flabbergasted when I told them of

my intention to join ESPN Star Sports in the summer of 2002.

But why, they asked. For the love of sports, I replied. However, not a soul was impressed, largely

because the shift was not routine. In India, reporters have rarely moved from sports journalism to

business reporting and back again.

In short, I could sense that my friends were convinced I was messing up my career. Why not the net?

Get into the web world, argued some. Those were the days of the net revolution. The bubble was just

starting to take shape. And the big bucks portals were on a mad talent hunt, offering pots of cash. There

was Hungama, Tehelka, and even Naradmuni. So why join a sports channel?

But I was totally convinced that it was the right move for me.

At the end of the day, it was about reporting, right? Backing me to the hilt was the person who brought

the offer, my former colleague, Joy Bhattacharjya. Until he joined ESPN after a stint with Transworld

International (TWI), Joy had been a hands-on man for computer applications, television

programming, quizzes, and dating. Joy was brilliant in whatever he did. To me, he was the

quintessential lover boy. To him, I was the quintessential newshound.

Joy’s advice was simple but worth a million dollars: he was convinced that nothing would sell for the

next three decades in Indian sports except cricket. The added advantage for ESPN Star Sports was that

the world’s largest sports broadcaster had the bulk of the overseas cricket rights and the Indian cricket

team was to play more matches abroad that year (2002). The situation remains largely unchanged. Star

Sports has the cricket that matters for Indians.

And if you are with a sports channel, it means you virtually crisscross the globe with the game and the

cricketers. I signed on the dotted line, without realizing that the employment contract initially offered

the job for just three months. Ujjwal Sarao, the genial HR head of ESPN Star Sports then had a great

laugh before changing it into a year. It meant that I had a year to prove myself.

ESPN Star Sports with its 27-camera coverage of cricket was a completely new world for me. It was fun

from the first day. I had – in the formative years of my career – covered football, but eventually dropped it

because both the game, and the players were headed nowhere in India. I presume it is pretty much the

same story now, despite what many claim is a ‘heroic’ attempt by NCP leader Praful Patel to push

football to a larger platform by bringing in some of the world’s top stars, including Lionel Messi.

But it’s a wholly different world when you talk of cricket. It is because cricket bought more success to

India than any other sport. Till M.S. Dhoni led his team to the World Cup success in 2011, the 1983

World Cup win was the only one etched in the minds of millions. But India already had started

acquiring center stage in world cricket under Saurav Ganguly. Bengal’s classy left hander led a team that

won the Natwest Series in 2002, excelled in the 2003 ICC World Cup, the Test-ODI series Down Under

and the ice-breaking Pakistan series. Cricket brought loads of cash for the Board of Control for Cricket in

India (BCCI) and it became the richest body of its kind in the world. In 2008, Dhoni’s boys had won

the inaugural T20 World Cup in faraway South Africa.

Cricket was on an upswing. On the other hand, football and hockey got India virtually nothing. An

interesting piece of research from cricket historian Boria Mazumdar shows the 1975 World Hockey Cup

win in Kuala Lumpur came when black-and-white television sets were a luxury. So the generation that

loved hockey could not remember the win and help the game grow. The 1982 Delhi Asian Games 1-7

loss to Pakistan made matters worse. Naturally, the generation that followed wasn’t interested in

anything else but cricket.

Perhaps it was the reason why ESPN Star Sports – now two separate entities post the split – remained

doubly focused on cricket. The channel wanted nothing but cricket from India. At times, working out of

their swanky office in Singapore, I wondered whether there was anything else than the willow game that

pushed the channel’s operations in South Asia. There was none. Football was also a priority for the

channel but it was only international football, especially the English Premier League and La Liga. There

was also Formula1, PGA tours and some second-hand wrestling, Total Action Network (TNA) that

looked pale in front of those high-voltage shows of World Wrestling Federation (WWF) telecast on a

rival channel.

But the big cash for the channel was in the willow game.

Initially, I rebelled and spent some time pushing football from Kolkata. Joy pushed other stuff. Being a

quizzer himself, he had already plugged The ESPN Quiz Show, developed a new format for the national

game – the Premier Hockey League (PHL) – and conceptualized fabulous shows like Pehelwan (it was

India’s answer to WWF, which did not see the light of the day because the channel could not find any

wrestlers to match the ones offered by WWF).

Joy also planned Search for Sachin but again found no one offering the greenbacks for such an

expensive project. I was instrumental in signing on Saurav Ganguly – then the skipper of the Indian

cricket team – for the Samsung Cricket Show, but it sank without a trace because Ganguly, unlike Navjot

Singh Sidhu or Ajay Jadeja, wasn’t charismatic on the sets. Worse, he – perhaps because of his position –

remained boringly diplomatic before the camera. And what was most painful was his routine skipping of

recording schedules, a nightmare for the producers. Another show, Sachin Speaks, an expensive one for

ESPN Star Sports where the Master Blaster talked about his game and life, tanked without a trace,

ostensibly because India’s top cricketer’s squeaky speech was not great television. Even the best of the

ebullient Harsha Bhogle failed to push it up the TRP ladder.

All this increasingly convinced me that only live cricket – or anything associated with the live version

of the game – was the way forward with Indian audiences. I junked football and plunged headlong into

cricket.

My first experience – it was a bizarre one – with the world of cricket and cricketers came on the eve of

the 2003 World Cup in Johannesburg. As we all waited in a semi-lit hall where captains of the

participating teams were to be assembled on a stage and the World Cup trophy displayed, I noticed a

harassed South African agent of LG desperately asking for help. He wanted a camera unit to record

statements of some cricketers – he didn’t say whom he wanted – about the South Korean white goods

giant, the chief sponsor for the World Cup. Everyone balked at the guy, refusing him outright. It was not

news, and worse, it was for a commercial purpose. No one agreed. A few members from Pakistan

television channel wanted instant cash for the work. The LG official rebuffed their demand in sheer

disgust. I stepped up and offered help. The portly man heaved a sigh of relief and instantly ushered me

into a hall where I could not believe what I saw: captains of the participating teams were waiting

patiently for the camera unit to utter one line for LG and head for the stage. LG wanted them to say ‘For

me, it’s LG first,’ I asked much more. Everyone, thinking it was for LG, happily obliged: Ricky Ponting

talked about (Mathew) Hayden’s firepower and his confidence of retaining the cup; Wasim Akram said

he was convinced he, Waqar (Yunus), and Shoaib (Akhtar) would rattle any team and kept on talking

about the match against India (as if everything revolved around it); Nasser Hussain was convinced that

Andrew Flintoff was the world’s best all-rounder; and Saurav Ganguly talked of Indian fan pressure that

was huge. I was over the moon. ESPN Star Sports rocked with the scoop in its inaugural show, leaving

other channels – including Set Max, the host broadcaster – wondering what had gone wrong.

Cricket started becoming a way of life for me. I trailed the Indian national selection in Australia and

got to see – besides quality cricket – the other side of cricketers. It stretched from playing cricket with

Steve Waugh in the streets of Melbourne, to sending a Santa Claus to Saurav Ganguly’s room, to

convincing the legendary Sunil Gavaskar not to walk out of a commentary box because his wife

Marshneil didn’t find biscuits on the table along with her tea.

And then, in 2004, on one such tour in Pakistan – described as historic by Indian and Pakistani

politicians for reasons known best to them – I met Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

The first interview I managed was that of Dhoni. He had long hair that drew praise even from General

Pervez Musharaff, and had played some fantastic innings. He shared some great stories about his life in

Ranchi, an obscure town that was home to India’s largest mental asylum, and which subsequently

became the capital of Jharkhand state – growing in importance because of its vast mineral wealth.

During the conversation, I reminded Dhoni of our previous interactions that had started very

strangely. Interestingly, he remembered some of it. ESPN had hired an extremely fun-loving reporter

from Ranchi, Goutam Das who would – almost every week –propose a story of just one, just one

promising cricketer – Dhoni. Tired of seeing the same cricketer every time, I once asked Das why he was

plugging this guy. Initially, Das ducked my question.

It was not that Das only chased this cricketer. His feature on young women footballers of Barauni

Flag, an obscure hamlet close to Ranchi, eventually made it to global ESPN broadcast, a rare thing for

journalists in India. There were others: one on how a veteran footballer, Chandreswar Prasad, and a

veteran hockey player, Sylvanus Dung, were selling their medals to earn a living.

Still, the once-a-week cricketer story was unfathomable. One night, Das, probably tired of my routine

harangue, shot back: ‘Please take it and do not argue, he will be a big star one day’.

‘How big?’ I shot back. ‘He will be the captain of the Indian cricket team.’ I didn’t argue.

I didn’t narrate the story to Dhoni as we talked in the presence of Pakistan’s flashy speedster, Shoaib

Akhtar. Already a star, Akhtar was getting a little impatient and even threatened to leave. I quickly

wrapped up my conversation with Dhoni to start the next interview with a visibly irritated Akhtar. ‘Kyabhai, hum to isey jaante bhi nahin hain. Aur aap ne hame wait karwa diya (What brother, I don’t even know

this player and you made me wait for him?)’ I pacified Akhtar and merely told him: ‘Aaj chota hain, kalbara ho jayega, aapkey tarah (Today he is small but tomorrow he will be big, like you).’ Akhtar’s ego was

back in its place.

As days, weeks, months and years passed, I was increasingly convinced that Dhoni was the man for

Indian cricket. Years later, I visited Ranchi to track his life and times. By then, he had been made the

Indian cricket captain and was riding on an all-time high. I uncovered a fascinating rags-to-riches tale

that existed in the sleepy capital of Jharkhand.

No one knew Ranchi till Dhoni emerged on the scene. And once he did, everyone talked cricket and

shunned hockey from a town that once produced top players like Dung Dung, the Topno and Lakra

brothers and, of late, Dileep Tirkey.

Every time I met Dhoni, I sensed his steely determination. His silence never meant disrespect, but

conveyed a very clear cut, no-nonsense approach. He was a man of few words. He knew the backroom

politics and Godfather syndrome in Indian cricket and walked the razor’s edge with precision. No one

could ever fault him because he rarely messed up. If he had to meet up with Gavaskar, he would let the

legend finish his commentary and the post-match analysis, and then walk up to him. If he felt the

selectors were making incorrect decisions that would adversely impact the team, then he would refuse to

buckle. He, unlike Saurav Ganguly, never required the BCCI’s hand of God (read Jagmohan Dalmiya)

and – till date – continues to remain supremely confident of his abilities: to lead the side and his life.

This book is actually the story of how Dhoni, the earthy boy from a simple middle-class family in

Uttaranchal (now known as Uttarakhand) became a world-class cricketer and eventually led the Men in

Blue.

Nothing would rattle him. He was confident when I met him first in 2004. He is confident now, nearly

a decade later. When many blamed the cricketers for their patchy win over Pakistan in the semi-finals of

the 2011 World Cup, he said only a ‘victory is important in a match’ and ‘the how doesn’t matter’. In a

flash, he had silenced the commentator to a deafening roar from the packed Mohali stands. In the finals,

when a sardine-packed Wankhade stadium exploded with joy, he quietly stepped back and allowed

Sachin Tendulkar, the legend, to hog all the limelight. And then, in the dead of the night, he quietly

chartered a private aircraft and landed in Tirupati to offer his hair to Lord Venkateshwara; and flew back

some hours later for a photo shoot with the World Cup at the iconic Gateway of India.

In fact, Dhoni’s life and how he got into the Indian cricket team could well be a lesson for all those

who want to be successful in cricket without a Godfather. Is that possible, many have asked? It is tough

in Indian cricket where allegations of partisan selection routinely fill the headlines of the newspapers

and television channels.

But Dhoni did it alone. His proximity to BCCI president N. Srinivasan happened after he was made

the skipper, not before.

This book is his story, his true story. It does not have details of match records – the web is a great

leveler for that today – except one match he played in Jaipur and the two World Cup wins.

This is a simple compilation of events – some private, some official – that actually shaped Dhoni into

a cricketer, and eventually the captain of the national team. I’ve spoken to Dhoni on innumerable

occasions, both in India and abroad, and have used his comments liberally in this book.

This book is for Keya and Bonny, the strength in my life, and our parents, who left us in strange

circumstances. Ma embraced cancer, father embraced hypertension. This is also for Rohinton, a former

colleague whom I had promised this one months before bullets fell him on 26/11 while he dined at the

Oberoi Trident with a prospective client.

A million thanks also to the two Gautams in my life. One, of course, is Goutam Das, who brought

Dhoni and the Dhoni story close to me and the other being Gautam Bhattacharya, the suave sports

editor of Ananda Bazar Patrika, arguably one of the finest cricket writers in India who helped me

understand cricket and cricketers better than anyone else. My thanks are also for Boria Mazumdar,

amazing with his knowledge of the game, and Joy Bhattacharjya, friends for life.

1

A Humble BeginningThe nondescript city of Ranchi is an unlikely choice for anyone looking to spot sporting talent in India.

Unlike Patiala, a small city in the state of Punjab, Ranchi does not boast of a state-of-the-art sports

training centre like the Netaji Subhas Institute of Sports, nor does it have the sprawling greens of Victoria

Memorial in Kolkata, the city which is home to India’s top football clubs. And most certainly, Ranchi is

no Mumbai, the city which has proved to be a fertile ground for the birth of cricketing talent over several

decades, including names such as Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, Ravi Shastri, and Dilip

Vengsarkar.

But what Ranchi does have is a cacophonous city centre named Sujata Chowk, where backfiring

trucks, belching lorries, and slow-paced cycle rickshaws often create the city’s worst traffic snarls. Known

primarily for being home to the country’s largest mental asylum, Ranchi continues to be a small town at

heart and in demeanour, despite being elevated – much against the wishes of a vastly superior

Jamshedpur – to the status of the state capital of Jharkhand.

Oblivious to the workings of the world around it, Sujata Chowk carries on at its own pace, which

means that at times, you could be stuck in traffic for nearly an hour with nothing to ease your

frustration. But if you are looking to meet the man who helped India’s cricket captain Mahendra Singh

Dhoni clear the first hurdle of his sporting life, then Sujata Chowk is your destination.

However, finding the man in the labyrinth that is Sujata Chowk, is not easy. The market heaves with

people and row upon rows of boxy little shops which are dominated by huge billboards urging you to

buy the latest gadget or adopt a new soft drink to get some fun in your life. The marketplace is abuzz

with activity for almost 18 hours a day, the year around. And even if the cricket pilgrim manages to

navigate his way through this chaos successfully, there is no guarantee that he would get to meet the

elusive man in person and, in turn get to hear from him the fascinating story of how he helped Dhoni

initially and set him off on the path to greater glory.

You could easily miss him – a simple man who blends into the faceless crowd, Paramjit Singh of

Prime Sports Store is not a rich businessman who decided to become a flashy patron of sport. On the

contrary, he is a humble shopkeeper who has no one to help him run the small sports goods centre he

owns in the busy area. If he offers you a cup of tea, it is most likely that he himself will go out and get the

tea for you.

The unassuming, portly, Singh could easily pass off as Balwinder Singh Sandhu, one of India’s lesser-

known cricketers whose claim to fame is the one magical off-break delivery that suddenly turned on the

wicket of Caribbean Master Blaster Gordon Greenidge and gave India a vital edge in the finals of the

Prudential World Cup in 1983 at Lord’s. In fact, a friend had once told Singh that if the weekly Sundaywas still alive and in circulation, he could have sent his photograph along with that of Sandhu’s for the

column Separated At Birth and earned the 200 rupees offered to those who were finally featured.

Since his small store is not always crowded, Singh usually divides his time at the shop between

watching soaps, cookery shows, and serials on Colors, Star Plus and NDTV Imagine channels and

attending to customers, most of whom are mothers seeking the specialized Beat All Sports (BAS) bat.

The demand for BAS bats, admits Singh, has been high ever since Dhoni started endorsing the brand.

Singh sells nearly 80 to 100 such bats every month. ‘They all want BAS bats, confident it will bring

luck to their sons who, eventually, will represent India,’ laughs Singh, as he offers sugary tea in small

glasses. He terms the rock-steady demand for the BAS bats the Dhoni effect.

Singh is someone who has known the current Indian cricket captain ever since Dhoni joined school

and routinely played galli cricket matches with him. And though Singh may seem an unlikely mentor

for one of the biggest stars in Indian cricket, he was among the first to recognize the raw talent latent in

this Ranchi lad. In fact, Singh went on to play a catalytic role in Dhoni’s transformation into a cricketing

hero.

It was in the mid-’90s, when Dhoni was barely 15 years old, that Singh – himself a young lad then,

just a couple of years older than Dhoni – spent months persuading the Ludhiana-based BAS to agree to

provide an annual supply of bats and cricket gear for a young but talented Dhoni. All cricketers,

irrespective of their stature, pride themselves on possessing their own specialized kit, and Singh was keen

that Dhoni should have his own kit too.

How the then young Singh, managed to pull it off is an interesting story, known to very few, even

within Ranchi. Singh, from the very beginning believed in the cricketing talent of his younger friend.

Dhoni, then just a kid from a humble background, was caught in the classic Catch 22 situation: if you

don’t have equipment, you can’t play tournaments and if you don’t win tournaments, nobody wants to

sponsor gear for you. Of course you could overcome the situation if you had spare cash lying around,

which was totally not true in the case of Dhoni.

In the early years – in a way, both Singh and Dhoni were struggling: one had not even established his

shop and the other had just started showing his promise in matches where records were rarely kept and

where cricket balls, often in short supply, were replaced with second-hand lawn tennis balls. Someone

needed to take the risk and sponsor the equipment the boy desperately needed or, some cricket gear

manufacturer had to be convinced to take on that risk. Singh could not afford to become Dhoni’s

patron himself, but he certainly did not want the boy to be distracted from his game by running

around, trying to raise cash for his own gear. The young Singh took on the onus of securing a patron for

Dhoni, oblivious to the fact that he had to get his business up and running before he could help

another chase his dream.

Singh was reminded of his father’s oft-repeated story about Dhirubhai Ambani. He remembered his

father telling him how the legendary tycoon had actually managed to secure his first loan from Citibank

without offering any collateral. ‘I knew I had to make someone believe in me. At that point in time, I did

not worry about my shop. My focus was Dhoni, I wanted him to succeed at every cost. He had to be

pushed and I had this strange feeling in me that I was the only one in Ranchi who could do it

wholeheartedly,’ says Singh.

Thus Singh undertook the painstaking process of calling the BAS bat makers, Sumi and Ramesh

Kohli, in faraway Ludhiana, almost every day to request them for an annual supply of bats and gear for

the Ranchi boy he thought had a promising future. He called persistently and spoke with meticulous

politeness, so much so that the PBX operator of BAS in Ludhiana would connect him to the brothers

without any hesitation: ‘I told them this would be a big gamble, but a risk worth taking,’ Singh

recollects.

Initially, they routinely banged the phone down on Singh. It was their way of saying a polite no. But

Singh laughed off the insult. He kept on calling. Sometimes he would call in the morning, sometime in

the afternoon, and often every night when the brothers were having dinner. At times, Singh would call

them around midnight, only to be told by the guard that the office was closed for the day. An

uncompromising Singh would not give up and resume his calls the next morning.

Once, one of the brothers, tired of the incessant calls, snapped back: ‘Bradman hai kya? (Is he Don

Bradman?)’. ‘Bradman ka baap hai, Sir (He is Bradman’s father),’ replied Singh, realizing that his

constant calls had now made an impression on the minds of the BAS owners.

The badgering worked. Perhaps someone had told the BAS brothers to get rid of Singh simply by

giving him what he was demanding. The Kohlis laugh when reminded of the story. And Singh still

believes it was his hard work that had borne fruit.

It still took a little bit more cajoling and a few more months for the final decision to be made, but

eventually the Kohli brothers agreed to provide Dhoni a yearly supply of eight bats and other gear – at a

one-time cost of 20,000 which they told Singh need not be paid because probably by now, the brothers

were more-or-less convinced that the consignment was actually meant for some wonder kid in Ranchi.

For them, it was an investment in a possibly bright future.

‘Probably, they were also tired of my daily telephone calls and wanted to get rid of me and my

demands,’ laughs Singh. For him, the first battle had been won: 15-year-old Dhoni’s biggest obstacle of

lacking quality cricket equipment had been overcome. Of course, the canny BAS manufacturers had

specified in their contract that the courier charges had to be paid by the receiver. It was a fair sum of

money for a fledgling businessman, but Singh gladly agreed to pay. He does not want the world to know

how and from where did he manage to pay those charges at the time. ‘Getting the gear was important

for me, as was repaying the courier charges. But you must be told the story of the cricket gear, not the

story of the courier charges and not how I raised that money,’ says a modest Singh.

If you make your way across Ranchi meeting with people who know the Indian skipper well, most of

them will unequivocally agree that Singh, in many ways, was the first Godfather to Dhoni. So, how

come this fact is not well known across the country? Singh laughs. ‘I am not the president of the Board

for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI); I did not handpick the captain. I helped a boy play quality

cricket with quality gear. I am not even his mentor, not even his coach. So why would anyone know me?’

Singh is blunt in his self-appraisal. He, in fact, does not even play cricket and rarely hangs out with

Dhoni when the latter is visiting Ranchi. ‘There are millions who would love to be his brand manager. I

did my bit when he needed help and moved on in life. I had nothing to gain from him then, I have

nothing to gain from him now,’ says a philosophical Singh.

Singh would much rather talk about the day when the courier with the cricketing goodies arrived at

his shop. He was actually praying to a framed picture of Guru Nanak, the first and most sacred of all

Sikh gurus, seeking his blessings and hoping that the courier would reach in time and intact.

Once the courier was in his custody, it was time for Singh to hand over the same to Dhoni. The young

cricketer was called from his home. Clearly a man with a sense of humour, Singh had put a dirty bed

sheet on the huge bag and asked Dhoni to sit on it and began to chat as usual. ‘We talked about almost

anything and everything. In fact, it was interesting to hear Dhoni continue lamenting about how lack of

cricketing gear was messing up his life. I could see that he was distracted as he looked around my shop

and would occasionally remain silent. I could sense his pain, but continued to converse nonetheless.

This went on for nearly twenty minutes and it was then, that I told him to take the bag out from under

the sheet,’ says Singh.

A surprised Dhoni asked Singh what the bag contained. Singh kept quiet as Dhoni bent down and

removed the bed sheet and saw the bag filled with cricketing gear. ‘Our eyes were wet with tears,’ is all

that Singh is willing to say, his voice choking with emotion at the recollection. He says that Dhoni sat

down and opened the bag, slowly checking everything one by one. It took the cricketer approximately

twenty minutes to check out his gear.

It was getting dark outside and it was time for Singh to down the shutters for the day. And once Dhoni

had finished checking his gear and had zipped up the bag, he looked at Singh wondering what next.

‘Yeh tera hai, ab ghar ja, mujhe dukan band karni hai (It’s yours, now go home, I have to close my shop)’.

Dhoni was speechless. While knowing fully well that his friend didn’t have the cash to buy the kit, he

ventured: ‘Kitney ka liya? (How much did you pay for it?)’ Singh merely smiled and hugged Dhoni.

Singh, in fact, was trying hard to control his tears. He realized he had been successful in helping his

friend. He calmed his own emotions and did not weep. ‘Why would I? It was his day, as it was mine. I

could have given him all the bats I sold because I own a sports equipment store but I knew he needed

top-of-the-line products which I did not stock back then. I did not even have one for display. So I asked

for it from someone who had it. I asked it from BAS,’ he says. As he downed the shutters and locked up,

Singh turned around to take a look at his friend. It was dark now and Dhoni had already walked some

distance. Singh could only make out the silhouette of a lean young boy with a heavy kit bag slung

across his broad and strong shoulders. The young cricketer was heading towards the nearby rickshaw

stand because the bag was too heavy to carry all the way home. ‘Ab Mahi ko koi nahin rokega (No one will

stop Mahi [Dhoni’s nickname] now),’ Singh told himself. ‘I prayed after Mahi had left. I thanked WaheGuru for helping me,’ says Singh.

At home that night, Singh ate a frugal meal consisting of rotis and vegetables cooked in mustard oil.

His family already knew about their son’s dedication to his single-minded mission and its eventual

accomplishment. Some of the family members also knew that if Singh had, rather than asking for

Dhoni’s gear, asked for a franchise from BAS, it would have brought him and his store, both name and

fame. They also realized that if he had sold the free gear to some other rich, budding cricketer in the

state, BAS would not have bothered to crosscheck. But that Singh didn’t do any of that and selflessly

helped a friend made his family proud.

Singh recalls that as he was about to go to bed that night, his father Gurnam Singh, walked up to him

and silently hugged him close. ‘It meant a lot to me because I had felt that perhaps my family members

might not like my selfless act. I realized I was horribly, horribly wrong. Now that I knew my parents

wanted me to help Dhoni and – like me – very proud of the act, I also slept peacefully.’

For Dhoni, this was like manna from heaven. It meant a new life, and potentially a real chance at a

career in cricket. Singh had turned the impossible into possible for him. Dhoni walked into his home

and loudly summoned everyone. And then with tears in his eyes said: ‘Dekho Ma, kya mila hain (Look at

what I have been given).’

Dhoni’s mother, Devki Devi looked at her son, then the cricket gear in front of her and finally rested

her eyes on the image of Lord Krishna framed in the family’s prayer stand. ‘Sab uska karaya hai (The

Gods have made this possible),’ she whispered. However, no one heard her in the din that had followed

Dhoni’s summons. It was celebration time with samosas and homemade tea.

So did this incident turn the fortunes for Dhoni? Singh disagrees. He walks out of his shop to get yet

another round of tea. He still has several Dhoni stories to share, but there is one that he wants to tell

above all; the one that gives an insight into the meteoric rise of the newest of cricketing legends.

A few more customers walk in, disrupting the flow of conversation. Singh deals with them distractedly

in a hurry – he would much rather be telling stories about the Indian cricket captain. He is not

interested in the sales. He wants to get back to the retelling of the stories about Dhoni.

Ready with his next memory, he recounts: It was a balmy Sunday evening in December 2001 when

Singh heard that Dhoni needed to take a morning flight the very next day to Agartala (from Kolkata), in

order to play an important tournament. In typical BCCI style, the notice came through the offices of

Bihar Cricket Association (BCA) and reached Ranchi at an inordinately late hour, leaving little time for

the young cricketer to plan his journey. Getting to the Kolkata airport from Ranchi in the limited time

was going to be a tough task. The other, easier alternative was to drop out, blaming the late notice.

However, Singh and others felt that it would be disastrous for Dhoni.

So what was to be done? Those days there were no overnight trains from Ranchi to Kolkata. A bus

would take at least 12 hours. And worse, there was no money for a big car – ideally a Tata Sumo – that

could take the pressures of a 367-kilometre Ranchi-Kolkata journey on one of India’s worst highways

(infested, at places, with herds of wild elephants, deer, boars, and Maoist rebels). The pressure to raise

funds for the journey was high and the time short. In fact, it all had to be organized within three to four

hours of getting the news.

Singh sprang out his chair and did a quick round of calling up friends. He distinctly remembers

making around 40-45 calls. Twenty-five people gathered in his shop. He told everyone that it was

important for Dhoni to play that East Zone match against West Zone, because the legendary Sachin

Tendulkar had consented to play for West Zone. ‘This is a great chance for Mahi. He will be able to meet

his childhood hero. And we, as his friends, must help him reach Kolkata. I hope you agree about the

importance of this match,’ Singh told those who had gathered in the small cramped shop. Everyone

agreed that Dhoni must go for the match, but wondered how would he make it? Who would dole out

the dough? After all, it would cost around 5000-6000 rupees to hire a Sumo to travel to Kolkata. And –

true to Indian traditions – last moment distress calls to taxi owners were being responded to with rates

which were more expensive than usual.

But Singh was confident about being able to raise the money. If the situation demanded, Singh

contemplated pawning his shop for a week. Meanwhile, he sent a message to Dhoni that he should pack

his kit and get ready for the journey.

Dhoni, of course wanted to know how he would reach Kolkata in time when a bus journey would take

a minimum of 12 hours and there were no trains. Singh cut him short and told him not to worry about

the how, but to concentrate on how to handle the West Zone bowlers. Dhoni wanted to know how

Singh and others were planning to organize the car. A stubborn Singh would not reply. Finally

exasperated, Dhoni called some other friends to find out how Singh was raising cash for his journey but

they all feigned ignorance. Singh had forewarned them, he was clear that Dhoni should not worry

about car or cash. His focus should be on his game.

‘I still remember that night. While Dhoni packed his gear at home, I desperately sought money from

friends and managed to drum up an amount that would at least help me book a car. The cash arrived in

installments and – expectedly – was awfully inadequate. I was in a total state of panic because time was

running out and we really, really didn’t know what to do to get Dhoni into that vehicle.’

Singh made some more calls. Some more friends responded and offered him cash but also told him –

in clear terms – when to return the money. ‘We are not rich people. You must return the money within

the promised time frame and not falter,’ they told Singh. After two hours of painstaking calling and

cajoling, Singh and a friend sat down in the shop to total what they had managed to raise. They

realized that the money was just enough to book the car. Half the job was done but the next half

remained equally tough: in small towns in India you also have to fill fuel midway once while on a long

journey. And that meant more cash. Where would that come from?

‘I was now in a tough situation. I had to start immediately (and Dhoni was waiting) but I also knew

somewhere after a few hours, the driver would ask for cash to fill in petrol. So I had to – very quickly – get

all the cash organized,’ says Singh.

They had to leave as early as possible because the journey was long. There was no time to lose. Singh

told his friends to get ready, collect Dhoni and meet him at a particular petrol pump where the car

owner would be sending the vehicle. And then, he emptied his cash box and took everything he had,

even the coins. Every paisa was important for the journey. ‘I still don’t know how I managed that cash. I

think I had stocked a week’s sales and not taken any money home. In fact, when I was collecting

everything I remembered a host of things my family members had asked me to do. There were lots of

purchases to be made for the family,’ Singh laughs heartily as he recollects moments from that night.

The friends met and after eating a quick meal at a roadside dhaba they set off on the journey. As

Dhoni slept in the back of the car, Singh and Gautam Gupta – Dhoni’s brother-in-law – tried hard not

to fall asleep while taking over the driving wheel a couple of times. ‘We had to do it because we realized

that the car owner had sent a driver who had already done some 400 kilometres and was very, very tired.’

A couple of times, they stopped the car to let speeding lorries and belching trucks overtake them,

leaving them engulfed in clouds of soot and smoke. Often, they stopped to give passage to wild animals

crossing from one side of the forest to the other. There were, in fact, many of those two-three-minute

halts on that treacherous run. And each time they had to make a quick stop, Singh waited with bated

breath in the car and prayed that they managed to get Dhoni to Kolkata in time. It was a drive fraught

with tension. At times, Dhoni would wake up and ask where the car had reached, only to be told that

Kolkata was still miles away. ‘I didn’t want to disturb him; all I told him was that he needed to sleep

because he had a match to play. says Singh.

The bleary-eyed travellers eventually reached Kolkata’s Dum Dum Airport – having encountered loads

of trucks near the city’s entry point that further slowed them – just as the sun’s rays were beginning to

kiss the runway and reflect off the airport’s freshly washed tarmac. Rested and delighted at having made

it, Dhoni was super active. He was the first one to jump out of the car with the cricket gear bag. He was in

a real big hurry to get on to the flight that would take him to meet the legendary Sachin Ramesh

Tendulkar.

Singh and Dhoni rushed to the airline counter. Singh stopped dead in his tracks as he heard the

routine announcement over the public address system informing that IC412 to Agartala had taken off.

Dhoni – claims Singh – hadn’t heard the announcement clearly and was still walking towards the

entrance. Gautam stopped him before he could show his ticket to the guard for mandatory checks.

Dhoni initially didn’t believe that he had actually missed the flight but after crosschecking a couple of

times, he retreated into silence and stared at the public address system with a dazed look. Singh – who

had by then collapsed near the car – went over the number of times they had had to slow down the

journey, extending the drive time by almost an hour. ‘I cursed myself like anything,’ he says.

Dhoni was crestfallen at having missed the flight and eventually the match; the next flight to Agartala

was only the following morning. He looked at those who had travelled with him. The heartbroken

troika of Singh, Dhoni, and Gautam – sat still for almost half an hour next to the car. Singh was sure

that while Dhoni must have been very upset for not being a part of the playing eleven and meeting

Tendulkar, he noted with interest that the future cricket captain’s calm face refused to betray any of the

tumult inside.

Singh did not have the courage to talk to Dhoni and walked away from him towards the ticket counter

to change the dates. ‘I still wanted him to travel and get into the side as an extra,’ says Singh. He was very

upset with himself. ‘It seemed my efforts had failed.’

As he stood crestfallen near the counter, Singh felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Dhoni. ‘Never mind,

this is not the end of the world. This is not the last match,’ said Dhoni, even as Singh broke down into a

paroxysm of sobbing. ‘Dekh main kuch kar nahin paya. Main fail ho gaya (See I could do nothing, I failed),’

said Singh.

‘Tu hain, isi liye to Calcutta paucha. Ab uth (You were there, that is why I could reach Calcutta. Now get

up),’ said Dhoni, watched by a few bystanders.

Singh says it may have been the first, but certainly not the last of the setbacks and travails faced by

Dhoni before he tasted success. But the manner in which he handled this first real crisis said a lot about

his intrinsically strong character. His stoic acceptance of what young sports people would normally

regard as a complete catastrophe was indicative of the uber-cool attitude would become the hallmark of

Dhoni’s eventual captaincy of the national cricket team.

In fact, Singh reminds everyone about Dhoni’s reaction to the 2008 Commonwealth Bank series win

in Australia under some very adverse conditions. While his young teammates sprang about the pitch in

sheer jubilation after the victory, Dhoni stood still taking in their exuberance. It was a while before he

relented and smiled a little: it was obvious that he was acutely aware of the fact that just three bad

deliveries could have meant that the match would have ended differently with tears instead of cheers.

This was India’s first tri-series win in Australia.

Dhoni later told reporters that he considered the win ‘a greater victory than the World T20’,

attributing the two prestigious wins over the last seven months to a team effort. ‘The role of the captain

was not the only one. The captain is one guy who gathers the pressure and then channels it to the

individual player and then it depends on how that individual reacts,’ he told reporters.

‘He never overreacts,’ says Singh about Dhoni. The Indian captain is usually the epitome of calm-

headedness. It is an innate strength that has stood him in good stead.

Singh is now tired of talking and wants to leave. ‘Write about these two incidents only,’ he laughs as he

starts packing his bags for the day. For Singh, only these incidents – in one he succeeded, in the other he

failed – matter when he talks of the man who eventually became the Indian cricket captain and led the

nation to some great wins, including two World Cups.

Like Singh, Dhoni too remembers these two incidents clearly. For both, it is the effort that counts

above all.

2

Tennis Ball Cricket

Ranchi, once Bihar’s second largest city, has not really been known to be a fertile ground for cricketing

talent.

With the notable exception of Kapil Dev’s emergence from Haryana, cricketing gods (and their

godfathers) in India have belonged to the big metros – Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi. Mumbai

has had Raj Singh Dungarpur and N.K.P. Salve, Chennai has had M.A.M. Ramaswamy, A.C. Muthiah

and now N. Srinivasan, Delhi has had its usual quota of cricket-loving politicians like Arun Jaitley,

Rajeev Shukla as well as the Amarnath brothers while Kolkata had Bishwanath Dutta and later,

Jagmohan Dalmiya, the man who changed the face of Indian cricket by making it a larger-than-life

entity from which everyone could mint cash.

Why would then anyone care about Ranchi?

Ranchi, actually, was the backyard of Indian hockey with Punjab being the actual home of the sport.

Ranchi produced hordes of international hockey players but since they played ‘only hockey’, no one –

barring the local media – bothered to turn them into celebrity figures.

These hockey players came from tribal backgrounds and were groomed by Christian missionaries.

Interestingly, it was mandatory for students to carry hockey sticks along with books to the schools. After

three hours of teaching, the children were herded into an uneven, pebbled ground for an hour and a

half of barefoot hockey. There were many who played at district and state levels, eventually graduating

to national and international levels, including Sylvanus Dung Dung, Michael Kindo, Manohar Topno,

Bimal Lakra, Gopal Vinghra, Birendra Lakra, and Ashunta Lakra.

The city also produced some well-known footballers in the late ’60s and ’70s for clubs in Kolkata, then

considered the Mecca of Indian football. Football fame came to Ranchi via the able feet of defender

Chandraswer Prasad and the safe hands of goalkeeper Peter Thangaraj. Both played for the big clubs of

Kolkata – East Bengal, Mohun Bagan and Mohammedan Sporting.

Sadly, Ranchi’s three football greats don’t have happily ever afters. Prasad battled both poverty and

alcoholism before ESPN Star Sports reporter Goutam Das resurrected him with a heart-rendering report

that had football fans from across the country donating money. East Bengal Club also hosted a charity

event in his honour and raised some funds. Dung Dung’s case was similar. Das filmed him as he was

about to sell the medal he had won for the nation in the 1980 Moscow Games, one of India’s handful

golden triumphs at the Olympics.

Thangaraj was not that lucky, he died a lonely death in 2008. His body was found in a room filled

with dogs. Neighbours claimed that the veteran footballer, a total recluse, used to feed the dogs regularly

from his meager pension.

Meanwhile, Ranchi’s contribution to cricket was limited to a lowly Ranji Trophy player. Subrata

Banerjee, a pace bowler who played for India in the ’90s, was mistakenly considered to be a player from

Bihar.

As a matter of fact, the state government officials (then Bihar) would rarely discuss cricket. Worse, at

times, they would openly admonish some of their officials who would bring up the state’s lack of

cricketing talent and argue for more funds to overcome it. Things, more or less remained the same when

Jharkhand came into being. Why? Because the state was home to a number of hockey players, only their

advice mattered when budgets were allotted by the state government officials.

The apathy towards cricket ran deep in Jharkhand, with even parents of school going children never

arguing with schools’ sports coaches to groom their sons as cricketers.

Thus, with the sporting fraternity focused almost entirely on hockey, it was quite natural for Keshav

Ranjan Banerjee, the cricket coach at the DAV Jawahar Vidya Mandir school in Ranchi’s Shyamali

neighbourhood, to not expect any cricketing wonders from among his students. He, in fact, rarely

discussed the willow game in the class. No one will respond, a waste of time, he often told himself.

Worse, he had standard instructions from the school principal, a die-hard hockey enthusiast, that the

boys should be encouraged to play hockey. If they rebel, football could be considered. If that also does

not work, the school – argued the principal – would push for badminton, volleyball, or even basketball.

Banerjee, who wanted to push cricket, did not argue. ‘I am a soft-spoken person, even if I do not like

what I am being told to do, I will rarely argue. And in small towns, teachers do not have the guts to

disagree with the principal,’ says Banerjee.

The principal, in fact, was happy that Banerjee did not argue.

‘I distinctly remember that our principal had a peculiar theory. For him sport was not serious and he

would tell me that he was sanguine that the boys would, sooner or later drop out of sports to pursue

higher studies,’ says Banerjee. ‘It is more a fitness issue in the school,’ the principal would tell Banerjee.

A disgusted Banerjee only hoped someone would push for cricket in the school. A tired Banerjee

would, at times, lament to his wife, ‘I know that sometimes they play (cricket) just for fun in the school;

even their parents are not interested. I also know that they will, eventually, pursue higher studies and not

the sport. I am just trudging along with these kids. It’s just a job for me.’ The trained coach in Banerjee

was frustrated. He had a feeling the boys were not serious, because their parents were not serious. No

one in India – then – sought a career in sports for their children. So Banerjee’s job – by that count – was

relatively easy. He simply had to herd the boys into the ground and get them out after a two-and-a-half

hour of practice. And he did that without complaining. This thankless six-day routine of Banerjee’s

continued unabated for almost a decade.

Banerjee was not happy; because he could not find talent, he could not nurture talent. He would read

stories in the newspapers about coaches grooming their prodigies. He knew about Ramakant Achrekar,

the man who had shaped Sachin Tendulkar; Desh Prem Azad who had groomed Kapil Dev and

Madhav Mantri, the former Test wicketkeeper and uncle of Sunil Gavaskar who had shaped the Little

Master’s cricketing career. ‘When will I groom a Test cricketer?’ Banerjee wondered.

His interest in training students in cricket was waning but he needed the job to sustain his family. His

friends told him not to stress. ‘Why do you grumble all the time? The children are not complaining, nor

are their parents. So just do your job and enjoy life,’ Ashok Mukerjee, a close friend, would repeatedly tell

Banerjee.

Just as Banerjee had made his peace and was on the verge of giving up all coaching dreams, he saw a

flicker of hope – a young, frail student, named Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The unassuming boy came

from a humble background and when Banerjee spotted him playing football, he instantly liked his

reflexes under the bar. Every evening, on returning home, Banerjee would tell his wife Maya: ‘I have seen

a boy at practice. He is a very interesting character. In fact, he is very, very different from the rest. I like his

dedication. But do you know my frustration? That bloody fellow is also a footballer. Wish he was a

cricketer with that same dedication.’

Maya laughed and returned to the kitchen. Such conversations had become routine for her. But –

strangely – when she returned from the kitchen, she found Banerjee playing music. He was happy, very

happy.

Why, wondered Maya?

She at that moment did not know that her husband’s coaching ambitions had been resurrected by a

genuine find.

Banerjee would go watch the 14-year-old Dhoni everyday. He would spend hours watching him

under the bar and take random notes of the boy’s actions in a small pocket-sized diary. Why did he do

it? ‘I had a feeling one day he would come to me and seek help and I would make him a star,’ says

Banerjee. The coach was confident of Dhoni’s talent and cricketing potential, the only hitch was that

the boy was still hooked on football.

When he joined school, Dhoni was an average but focused student who is said to have avoided girls.

While high scores were not routine for him, Dhoni would at times score nearly 75 per cent in subjects

such as English, History and Geography and feel a sense of accomplishment. He was considered a good

student by his teachers both inside and outside the classroom. However, there were times when Dhoni

was admonished for getting poor marks in Mathematics and Science, and his reaction was to take the

feedback and improve in the next round of exams. His critics, mostly the class teacher, would –

expectedly – fall silent.

Much to Banerjee’s chagrin when he went out into the playing field, Dhoni, too would not opt for

cricket; preferring football because he had unusually fast reflexes to be a good goalkeeper. Naturally, he

was the first choice for his school team. Sometimes, the school principal would personally come to the

ground to see his favourite charge under the bar. ‘His spot jump to tip the ball over the bar was brilliant.

Sometimes, it would be a simple, yet superb nudge. Often, he would acrobatically jump parallel to the

ground and fist the ball over. And his diving was just out of the world, outstretched hands palming off

what looked like a sure-shot goal into a corner,’ remembers an excited Banerjee.

There were others too who appreciated Dhoni’s football skills. M.K. Bhadra, another teacher who

routinely visited the football ground to see Dhoni play, always encouraged him towards a career in

sports. ‘He was an average boy in the class, so we left him there and did not badger him for big marks.

His class teacher had a different theory but my point of view was simple. If he is extraordinary in the

field, let him focus there,’ says Bhadra.

Dhoni enjoyed the freedom on the field – he was the first player to reach the football field and the last

to leave. He was in love with the game. Cheered on by his classmates he would save some of the best

shots with consummate ease. The teachers encouraged him to watch video tapes of legendary

goalkeepers such as Lev Yashin, Peter Shilton and Dino Zoff. A patient learner, Dhoni watched the

videos and tried hard to integrate their styles into his actions. It seemed to Bhadra that Dhoni was

always eager to dive at the slightest pretext but after he got injured once, he had to change his stance.

‘Watch him carefully, you will see he still dives cautiously,’ laughs Bhadra.

But Banerjee had other ideas. He wanted Dhoni to shift to cricket. How was he supposed to do that?

It was tough because Dhoni loved his football and showed no interest in shifting to the willow sport.

Sensing Banerjee’s desperation, Bhadra – who would routinely have a cup of tea with Banerjee after

school hours – told him to give up on Dhoni.

‘I would tell Keshab that he was chasing a wild goose. Dhoni was immersed in football and loved

every moment of the 90-minute game.’

But Banerjee disagreed. He would take occasional breaks from his coaching classes and visit the

football ground to see Dhoni and his boys during practice and in action against local schools. It was

during one of these visits that Banerjee spotted a tiny ray of hope for himself.

Banerjee noticed a negative trait – the football coach argued it was totally insignificant – in Dhoni’s

game. Whenever he tried to pluck the ball off the head of a marauding forward inside the box, Dhoni

would prefer to fist the ball away. Not just once or twice, he would do it routinely. He would either

punch or palm the ball but not grip it. It seemed he was not ready to take any chances inside the box

and wanted to keep the ball away from the danger zone. But what was wrong with the grip, wondered

Banerjee.

Banerjee asked around and was told by a few players that Dhoni’s grip on the ball was not very good.

Banerjee, still confused, would often ask himself whether Dhoni was struggling with the grip or whether

he was struggling with the size of the ball? Would it work if he pushed him as a wicketkeeper instead? ‘In

fact, it was then that I realized I had already made up my mind and headed for Dhoni’s class the next

morning,’ says Banerjee.

Banerjee does not clearly remember what day it was, but has a memory of walking into Dhoni’s class

as the English teacher was reading stanzas out of William Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage. The

class was interrupted and Dhoni called outside the room by Banerjee. ‘You will do better if you shift to

cricket. Why not try out wicketkeeping? I am confident you will do well. And do not worry. I will back

you to the hilt. And do not think it is a joke,’ Banerjee told Dhoni.

Dhoni was transfixed. ‘Yeh to khel hi doosra hain. Dost kya bolenge (This is a different game altogether,

what will my friends say),’ was Dhoni’s first, rather innocent, reaction.

Banerjee wanted to keep the discussion simple. It is all about keeping, either under the bar or behind

the wickets, explained Banerjee calmly. The coach was by now doubly clear in his determination to

persuade the young lad to move out of the school’s football team. ‘You must have faith in me, I am

telling you this is the best opportunity anyone in the school will get. There will be no trials. Just walk

into the team.’ Banerjee was confident he had accomplished what he had set out to do.

Dhoni was confused. He wasn’t clear whether he should accept the offer. Leaving the football team

was something Dhoni hated from the core of his heart. One thing was clear to him. If he was out of the

football team, he would lose the school colours, which meant a lot to him. And he was also not clear

about the new role.

Dhoni surprised Banerjee by letting the coach know that he wanted to practice with him alone. Why

alone? ‘Probably, he wanted to avoid jeers from his footballer friends. After all, no one wants a footballer

to become a cricketer, especially if you were a regular member of the school team. Worse, seeking cricket

over football would have meant losing whatever little stardom you had in the school,’ laughs Banerjee.

Banerjee did not want Dhoni to feel bad about making the shift from football to cricket. He assured

Dhoni that he would get that special attention but he would also have to give his best to the new sport.

Banerjee made it clear to his prospective student that this was not a temporary arrangement but the

start of a new life, a new career.

‘I am ready sir but kindly guide me. This is a new game for me. I need your guidance,’ was Dhoni’s

quick reply.

The practice sessions started immediately. Away from the glare of other students – some of whom had

already jeered Dhoni for making what they called life’s biggest blunder – and teachers, Banerjee

organized a series of special training sessions for the student he felt had immense talent. Dhoni was at

practice every day without fail and trained with Banerjee for almost two hours regularly. After a week of

conducting such sessions Banerjee was convinced that his student in fact had an issue with the size of

the ball and not with the grip. Dhoni was keeping wickets brilliantly. ‘He was good, very good,’ says

Banerjee.

Sometimes, Banerjee would get students from neighbouring schools to come and practice with

Dhoni, at other times he would spend time showing Dhoni video tapes of some of the world’s finest

wicketkeepers. ‘I could not afford to have him turn his back on cricket,’ recounts Banerjee.

Soon, Dhoni’s slow but steady transformation was witnessed by both those from his school as well

those from other schools who would come for practice matches. Still, Banerjee remained worried. What

if Dhoni has a change of heart and walks out of the team tomorrow? Banerjee would sit down with his

new student after every practice session, reminding him to take his new role seriously. Often they would

hear the crowds cheering the football team playing nearby and Dhoni would look at his former

teammates who would seem to be enjoying their game and getting enough support from those

watching it. And that was not the case with the school’s cricket team.

Banerjee realized football was still not out of Dhoni’s mind completely.

One day, sitting on a wooden bench on the edge of the cricket field, Banerjee told Dhoni the story of

Saurav Ganguly – the classy Indian lefthander who had also hoped to become a footballer before he

shifted allegiance to cricket. Banerjee pointed out that people often have to make career-changing

choices, but once they make the eventual choice, they stick to it. ‘You need to do the same with cricket,

Mahi. This is a great game and those into it are heroes in India, you will also become one if you stick to

it. Cricket has taken India to great heights, football hasn’t. You are in the right place. Do not ever think

of walking out.’

As they talked, Banerjee noticed that Dhoni kept glancing at a Kawasaki Bajaj advertisement in which

a motorbike morphed into a cheetah on the prowl. Banerjee pointed out to an attentive Dhoni that the

advertisement was all about speed. ‘I told him he had to be attentive behind the stumps, stand in an

awkward position for long hours, and be swift with stump-ins, brilliant with catches and, above all,

maintain a blistering pace in batting. I told Dhoni that he will have to transform himself from an average

player into a powerful man-machine. Only then he would be noticed,’ recalls Banerjee.

Those initial days of constant practice were troublesome because Dhoni while at ease with pace

bowlers, grappled with the spinners whose bowling necessitated his standing close to the stumps. He

was often irritated and reluctant to handle the spinners but Banerjee helped him gain the confidence

and told him in a game of cricket, only a wicketkeeper is constant. ‘And he improved overnight. Once he

came up to me and asked if the school authorities could organise floodlights so that he could practice

after sunset,’ says Banerjee, who at that point laughed off Dhoni’s request and politely told his student

that very few schools in India have floodlights for sports.

Dhoni was not happy with the reaction, he wanted to practice, practice and practice more to attain

perfection. He – noticed his teachers – became a little disruptive in the class. Often, he would encourage

his classmates to toss paper balls so that he could catch them in awkward positions. At times, it was

extremely annoying for his teachers who routinely complained to Banerjee, but the short-distance catch

practice in the class helped the aspiring wicketkeeper understand how to handle spinners on the field.

‘Where I slipped, his classmates helped. The paper balls and catching practice worked wonders with

Mahi,’ says Banerjee, who would often watch the paper ball catching act from outside the class.

Soon, Dhoni’s metamorphosis from goalkeeper to wicketkeeper was complete. Now it was time to

shape him as a batsman and teach him how to massacre bowlers. ‘I didn’t have to try much; actually, I

did nothing to groom his batting. It seemed as if he practiced batting with someone so that he could

impress me,’ says Banerjee.

Dhoni’s batting ability improved with every session. His average in school matches was 50 and

centuries – especially in matches with other schools – were completed with relative ease. The bowlers

would have a nightmarish experience while bowling to Dhoni and would struggle to contain him. Often

he would hit the ball out of the school ground. In most cases, the ball was lost and the game called off

because of lack of spare balls.

Dhoni was brimming with effervescent energy: he would pad up the moment his side was ready to

bat, surprising – among others – the opening pair of the opposition bowlers who would routinely

wonder why he was all ready and padded up right at the start. It seemed to many that Dhoni actually

wanted to open the innings but could not muster enough courage to convey his desire to the coach.

His teammates were also surprised at Dhoni’s relentless pacing up and down in the dressing room. ‘I

would repeatedly tell him to relax because he was not the opener.’ But Dhoni would not listen and

would continue to pace up and down. He would look agitated. He would look restless. ‘Sir, I must play

from start to finish and you must help me shape up as an opener. Otherwise, there is no fun. It is very

irritating to pad up and then wait for long,’ Dhoni eventually told a shocked Banerjee.

Banerjee was flummoxed. ‘I told him to cool down and focus on his wicketkeeping and batting and

not demand things which could not be granted. It’s not important to open and play from start to finish,’

Banerjee told his favourite student. Dhoni was not satisfied with the coach’s reaction. At that point he

nodded in agreement and quietly walked away. However, days later, Banerjee was told by his friends that

Dhoni was impressing upon his teammates to allow him to open the innings. Some initially refused but

when they saw Dhoni often finishing the game single-handedly with his awesome power play, they all

fell in line. Often, laughs Banerjee, the opener in the side would come up with some lame excuse of

‘cramps’ and ‘headache’ and ask Banerjee if Dhoni could replace him. Banerjee had no choice but to

agree.

Dhoni’s blistering pace began during his schooldays and has stayed with him since. During a Bengal-

Jharkhand match at the Eden Gardens (Kolkata), Dhoni impressed the then Indian skipper Saurav

Ganguly, who was leading Bengal, from the moment he stepped into the crease. Dhoni hit bowler Laxmi

Rattan Shukla all around the field. Thrice the ball had to be retrieved from outside the stadium. Shukla,

already a star in Bengal, was obviously not happy with the hammering. He tried several tricks but none

worked. Such was his firepower that Shukla eventually lost his temper and became somewhat abusive.

The umpires noticed. Initially, they tried to ignore the slugfest but had to ultimately intervene. It did not

work. Dhoni continued his big hits and every time the ball went soaring over the ropes, Shukla would

swear at the batsman.

Eventually, Ganguly walked up to his bowler and curtly told Shukla that he should mend his ways:

‘What is this nonsense? Instead of losing your cool, learn a thing or two from the way he is batting. With

your erratic bowling and this ridiculous attitude, you will go nowhere, but if this player can retain even

half his touch, he will rule for many years.’ Prophetic words those, from a master at the top of his game!

Dhoni, obviously, was over the moon.

He remembered that he had never been to a cricket coaching school and never had a dedicated coach.

He just had Banerjee taking some special classes every day.

‘This is something I always tell many youngsters in Ranchi who came to me to learn cricket once

Dhoni made it big. If you are really good and dedicated, you actually do not need a push,’ says Banerjee.

Dhoni, who would always meet up with Banerjee during his visits to Ranchi, had not forgotten his

coach’s words. He, in fact, remembered Banerjee and the techniques he had learnt from him even after

his inclusion in the national team. In fact, just before the 2005 historic Pakistan tour, Banerjee learnt

that Dhoni had come home to meet his parents. Immediately he went to meet his student and offer him

some tips. Dhoni was pleasantly surprised and welcomed Banerjee into his home in Ranchi’s MECON

colony. In fact, he himself was keen to meet Banerjee so that the coach could guide him on how to

handle the awesome Pakistani pace battery.

They both talked and Dhoni was asked by Banerjee to visit a cricket ground close to his school for

practice.

The next morning, when Dhoni reached the ground he was surprised to see what the coach had

brought for him. Banerjee had soaked 20 tennis balls in water overnight and hardened them. It was an

earthy way to tell a rising star how to handle pace bowlers.

‘Ranchi had no bowling machines, so I had no alternative.’

‘What is this for, sir?’ asked Dhoni. Banerjee’s immediate reply was: ‘Mahi, tere ko Shoaib, Gul aur Asif kasaamna karna parega (Mahi, you will have to face Shoaib Akhtar, Umar Gul and Mohammed Asif [in

Pakistan]).’

The practice session went on for four long hours. Banerjee wanted his student to attain total

perfection before heading out for an historic tour. Dhoni had to learn how to face Pakistan’s blistering

pace as a batsman. He also had to know how to deal with typical Pakistani sledging (read taunts) while

batting. Dhoni spent hours with his coach, a man who he trusted completely. He knew Banerjee knew

his game the best and understood his strengths and his weaknesses on the field like no one else.

But did Banerjee have to think about Dhoni? After all, the Indian cricket team had a dedicated coach

in New Zealander John Wright who knew how to groom his boys. ‘This is an unwarranted question.

Beta baap ko kahbi hire nahin karta (the son never hires the services of his father).’

Banerjee told his favourite student that machines can never replace the wonders of personal touch.

Before he wraps up the interview, a by now tired Banerjee has one last story to narrate – a story that

effectively illustrates how Ranchi knew what they were getting in the form of Mahendra Singh Dhoni. It

– in some ways – showed the BCCI what was headed their way for the national selection from a sleepy

town in Jharkhand.

It was a simple school match that not many attended, at first at least. Banerjee – knowing Dhoni’s

innate abilities – asked him to open the innings with teammate Shabbir Husain. Dhoni was over the

moon because for the first time Banerjee had himself asked of Dhoni what he had always desired.

Having instructed Dhoni, Banerjee left the dressing room.

A few minutes later, Banerjee realized Dhoni and Hussain had not come out of the dressing room. He

waited for another ten minutes. By then, the rival fielders had already walked onto the field. The

openers were still not out of the dressing room. Banerjee heard some commotion and wanted to find

out what was going on for himself.

And what he saw and heard was indeed bizarre. Standing in the middle of the dressing room Dhoni

was arguing with his teammates that he would not pad up and play without pads. Why? Banerjee was

now fuming.

‘It will slow down my pace,’ Dhoni shot back.

‘This is rubbish,’ Banerjee screamed.

‘Please sir, this is a school match,’ Dhoni was pleading now.

Banerjee agreed, realizing it was a standard inter-school match and the request had come from none

other than his ‘special student’.

‘Okay. So boys, just relax. Let these two handle the day for us and Dhoni is permitted to play without

pads,’ ordered Banerjee. Standing close by, Dhoni’s opening partner Shabbir Hussain didn’t know what

had hit him. He walked out with Dhoni without uttering a word.

It was a day to remember.

Dhoni faced 150 balls, and cracked 6 sixes and 26 boundaries for his 213, while Hussain scored 117

off 116 balls. Every time Dhoni hit a six, the ball went out of the stadium. There were times when the

umpires got irritated because the match had to be halted for more than ten times while the fielding team

waited for the ball to be retrieved. In fact, the bowlers got so tired that some of them actually started

complaining. Worse, some of the bowlers felt insulted and stopped bowling and had to be replaced with

others who weren’t as good. That made things worse for the visiting team: the two openers put on board

a whopping 378 that day.

Meanwhile, news had spread that Dhoni and Hussain were making mincemeat of the rivals. The

principal of the school declared a half-holiday and told everyone to rush to the stadium.

At the end of the first day, the entire school had reached the playing ground to give the two boys a

standing ovation. ‘And mind you, although Hussain looked a little fazed, Dhoni was still not tired.

Everyone who talks about the Sachin-Kambli record-breaking partnership in a school league with loads

of fanfare ought to know this story too. They scored over 600 in three days, right? No one knows about

this match in Ranchi,’ says Banerjee.

How come no one knows this story? According to Banerjee, Ranchi’s reporters at that point in time

never covered school cricket matches. They still don’t. If they did, it would have trickled up into national

headlines.

Banerjee rustled up a photocopy of an ordinary school match score-sheet that he always carries with

him. In some places the writing is unclear as if it has been smudged with watermarks. Is this the only

score sheet of that very eventful match? It is a photocopy, says Banerjee. And the water marks? Did it rain

that day? No, it didn’t, Banerjee remembered clearly. And then he added: ‘This happened very recently,’

Banerjee’s tone is low suddenly.

He is now recounting the story. He had taken out the score sheet from his wallet and looked at it while

Dhoni led India to victory over Pakistan in the inaugural T20 World Cup in South Africa in 2007.

And as he held the score sheet in his hands, Banerjee realized that he was weeping inconsolably and

tears were smudging the score sheet. His best student had won the honours for India – he was a star, a

superman, a demi-god. What impressed Banerjee most was that Dhoni gave away his shirt to a local kid.

‘Only an earthy man from a small town would do that, don’t you think so?’ he asks.

The sun has almost set in Ranchi and it is fairly dark outside Dhoni’s old school. Banerjee has again

taken out the score sheet. He is quiet, pensive. He doesn’t want to talk anymore. The paper – which

always travels with him in his wallet – reminds him of Dhoni’s past, and the smudged marks, his future.

The day Dhoni won the World Cup in Mumbai and India was gripped in its wildest cricketing fervour,

Banerjee hopped-skipped-jumped from one studio to another in Ranchi. He returned home late to his

wife and food that had turned cold on the table.

His family members say Banerjee didn’t utter a word. Perhaps he had talked enough throughout the

day. He merely told them to clear the table so that he could – once again – take out the photocopy of the

score sheet and spread it on the table.

‘Careful, it should not get smudged. We must frame it tomorrow and hang it on the wall,’ Banerjee

told his family. But he had once promised to give it to his ace student? ‘He has the World Cup. Everyone

will remember him when they talk of the World Cup in India. We have this one, everyone will know how

he played as a boy when they see the frame here,’ replied Banerjee.

The framing happened the next day. Has Dhoni seen it? The Indian skipper hasn’t. When he comes to

Ranchi next, he will. The 56-year-old Banerjee is still waiting in his two-room home for the doorbell to

ring.

And then, there will be loads of laughter, and, possibly, four hours of fun-filled, floodlight cricket with

water-soaked tennis balls. Banerjee knows Mahi will come again, probably this will be the last advice the

Indian cricket captain will seek from his first coach.

3

Hard Life in Hills, Glory in Plains

Devki Devi was born and brought up in the picturesque hill town of Nainital in the north Indian state of

Uttar Pradesh (now the region is part of Uttarakhand). In 1969, the petite woman – a devout Hindu –

married a young Paan Singh who belonged to Talasaalam village in the neighbouring Almora district.

Devki and her parents did not have many expectations from her life other than hoping that she would

have the hardworking but happy life of an average homemaker.

The two had a happy marriage: they had children, worked hard and believed that their future was

pretty much mapped out for them. They ate frugal meals and sometime slept under the starlit sky,

oblivious to the dangers of the predatory leopards who would routinely visit the village in the dead of

the night in search of livestock. The couple was happy when they had their first child, a son, on 14 May

1975. They named him Narendra after the great Indian sage Swami Vivekananda. The second child,

also a son, was born on 7 July 1981. He was named Mahendra after the Great Indra, king of Gods. Paan

Singh was ecstatic with joy and borrowed cash to buy sweets but Devki longed for a girl. Eventually,

Jayanti was born to them in 1985. Devki was overjoyed. Her family was now complete.

However, a few years later things began to fall apart for the couple financially. Singh first tried growing

potatoes in the mountains and met with initial success, reaping a good harvest for the first two seasons.

The hitch? He had to walk for over three hours to take his produce to the nearest market. Both the

journey and the sale were often not very profitable. There was no route by which the farmer could sell

produce to a bigger market, and meanwhile the middleman who bought the produce after the farmers’

arduous 10-kilometre walk to the market, would pay a pittance to the actual farmer. There were times

when Singh haggled for a larger cut but the middleman would flatly refuse. Eventually, the two split.

Finally, one day a crestfallen Singh told Devki that he was tired of being a farmer. Why, the crop is

good, said Devki. No, explained Singh, a good crop does not necessarily mean good money for the

family. He then asked for some tea and sat down to explain to his wife India’s middlemen syndrome that

was crushing the poor farmer. As he was talking to his wife, Singh had already started thinking of

alternate options for his family. The basic idea was to get away from farming and lead a more secure life

through some steady earnings. What Singh was looking for was a simple, fixed hours job.

By early 1980s Singh was ready for a change. ‘We must lead a tension-free life,’ he told Devki as she

prepared a meal of rice, boiled potatoes and cereal in a wood-fired oven.

Next morning, friends, who lived next door and were aware of Singh’s unhappiness with his life, came

home to counsel the couple. One suggested to try for a government job. What would that be? Singh was

worried that he was not educated enough to secure one and worse, it would invariably mean paying

some hefty bribes to someone to even secure one. Someone suggested Singh try for a job with the State

Transport Corporation. Singh said he could not be a driver because he didn’t know how to drive. But

you could be a ticket collector, said another friend. Singh agreed to apply. Given his then financial

situation, the option looked very lucrative.

Interestingly, Singh landed the job the very next month, thanks to some influence exerted by a local

politician who, for reasons obvious, will remain unnamed. It was around 1984, and Singh initially liked

his job. There was no working in the field, no blazing sun, no tensions from cloudbursts and no

arduous walks to reach the city market and, above all, no middleman. ‘I had to pick up that job, after all,

I had to feed the family,’ Singh said in an interview many moons later, sitting in his home in Ranchi.

But slowly problems started surfacing. Singh’s salary was proving to be insufficient to sustain his

family. While, the job, which was initially contracted for just for a year, provided steady cash every

month and guaranteed job security, the money just wasn’t enough. Devki could make out her husband

was growing frustrated day by day, mainly because of the salary.

‘What do we do now?’ asked Devki. Singh remained silent. But there was an idea brewing in his mind

that he did not share with her. He had already planned to move out of the hills and head to the plains.

While Singh realized that it would be a major shift in his life and that of his family, he was sure that they

were all ready for the change.

The decision to leave the hills was cemented one night when a tired Singh returned home after a

double duty of 14 hours and told his wife: ‘I cannot take this anymore.’

That was a big call for the family, especially Devki, who loved the hills and was reluctant to leave the

only home she knew. But she supported Singh and agreed with his decision. ‘I am with you, let’s see

where destiny takes us,’ she told her husband as he spoke to friends to evaluate possible employment

options in the plains.

‘He gave up farming and became a bus conductor but that also did not work out. He did not like his

job. Every evening he would return home depressed. But the move to Ranchi worked. He found a

relatively hassle-free job, says Devki, now sitting in her well-decorated home in Ranchi, where expensive

curtains give her privacy from the crowds keen to catch a glimpse of her illustrious son.

But Ranchi was not their first stop in the plains; the family would get there much later after a couple

of short stints, first in the state capital Lucknow and then later in the industrial town of Bokaro. Singh –

expectedly – didn’t like the odd jobs he had in the two places and looked to friends and acquaintances

for guidance. He eventually settled for an unskilled worker’s job with Metallurgical and Engineering

Consultants (MECON) in Ranchi. It was 1992 and Dhoni was barely 12 and in school like his sister

Jayanti. The eldest Narendra, then 18 years old, was on the verge of completing his schooling, but had

already developed a distaste for studies and informed his father about his intentions of doing business

right after school. When they arrived in the small dusty town, Ranchi had just two addresses of any

note: MECON and the Manasik Aryogyasahala (India’s largest mental asylum). But Singh loved the

town and settled down into happy domesticity with his family. It seemed to his friends that Singh had

finally found luck and peace of mind at MECON where he worked tirelessly to retire in 2001 as a work

supervisor. ‘Hard work, not cricket, is in our genes,’ smiles Devki Devi, as she offers sweetmeats and tea in

the cool environs of her Ranchi home, while outside, scores of people stand in the scorching heat

hoping for a glimpse of cricket’s wonder boy.

‘This [Ranchi] is somewhat familiar to the life we led in the hills. We found that the pace of the town

was similar to that of our life in the hills. No one is in a mad rush to get things done. And what we liked

was that people were friendly and they cared for each other,’ said a pleased Devki who is glad that her

husband made Ranchi his final stop in search for a better life.

Crowds outside her home are not an uncommon sight, irrespective of the fact whether the couple’s

cricketer son is in town or not. If Dhoni is in town and staying with his family, he routinely steps out to

meet those waiting for him.

But Devki does not want to talk about her son, his career and his glamour quotient. She, instead,

wants to talk about their life of hardship. Singh sits close, listening to every word his wife utters. He

merely smiles every time Devki narrates a tale of hardship that the two encountered in their early years

together.

Devki recounts the early days in the sleepy town of Ranchi which she hoped would be her final home.

Those were tough days, she says. Singh initially worked as a pump operator and watered the roads

lining the Shyamali colony that housed, among other buildings, the school where his children studied.

Interestingly, his only connection with cricket took place in the last week of November 1984, when he

was asked to ensure adequate water supply for the first proper turf wicket at Ranchi’s MECON stadium

for a Ranji Trophy match between Orissa (now Odisha) and Bihar. That was the nearest the father of

Ranchi’s most celebrated cricketer went to a game that would eventually make his son a household

name across the country.

‘Why would he enter a stadium unless there is work? In fact, we never thought of cricket. After all,

Ranchi was not known for cricket. Ranchi was known for hockey and nothing else. I didn’t pay much

attention to my son’s cricket, despite my neighbours often talking about it in evening soirees,’ says Devki.

Agrees Singh: ‘We are humble people and even till date do not talk about our son in public. In fact, we

discourage people from using his name every now and then.’ Singh means what he says. He had,

sometime after the T20 World Cup win in South Africa, publicly admonished a handful of Dhoni’s

supporters for contemplating constructing a temple dedicated to the India captain. ‘He is a human

being, you people are making a mistake. Humans don’t worship humans. Do not make him a god. Do

not construct the temple.’

Despite the family’s low profile, Dhoni’s fame and success has slowly transformed things, most

evidenced by the changes in and around his home.

Shardul Singh has been a security guard outside the cricketer’s home for a while now. He is

responsible for guarding, besides Dhoni and his family, his motorbikes – including one classy Harley

Davidson fitted with an imported Australian battery – that stand in mute witness before the curious

onlookers from Daltungunj, Netarhat and Tatanagar seeking a glimpse of Indian cricket’s latest God

Almighty. ‘They are here throughout the day, and camp till late night,’ says Shardul.

When Dhoni constructed his new home and moved his family there, the crowds followed too. At

times Devki peeps from behind the curtains and smiles at the crowd. It appears as if she is not sure

whether to ignore the crowds or bask in this newfound glory. ‘I do not take calls when my son is at

home. The phone rings non-stop. Everyone wants to see him. He cannot be at all places at all the times.’

No wonder then when he is in town, Ranchi needs Dhoni almost 24 hours a day. A minister wants

him to name his newborn, priests need him to visit their temples, a football academy wants him to play

a game to garner advertisements, young students save pocket money to buy garlands and worship – in

the absence of Dhoni – his collection of bikes. And if that seems reminiscent of the Ramayana’s Bharat

and his worship of his divine brother’s padukas (wooden sandals), it is certainly true that in India,

cricket is the only pan-Indian religion and 32-year-old Dhoni is its latest anointed deity. No wonder

then such adulation continues unabated in Ranchi.

Dhoni’s elevation to that of a deity in a country that literally worships its cricket superstars is not a

surprise. What is surprising is the rootedness of Dhoni despite this adulation. His talent may have

brought him to a place where he walks and talks with the A-listers, the Bollywood stars, the top

politicians and the corporate czars, but Dhoni never seems to have a dizzy moment.

In fact, it is quite the reverse. He walks the glamour ramp with ease, perhaps because he’s always what

he is, never what people think he is. His simple, grounded upbringing, with ingrained values of humility,

self-reliance, a strong work ethic and a clear sense of responsibility – not to mention the ability to reach

out and grab the brass ring of opportunity – is the key to his stellar success.

Singh and Devki talk fondly of their neighbours. Their families moved into the neighbourhood at the

same time and the children grew together, forging close bonds. ‘It has been a long time in Ranchi. These

people came around the time when we came here. So they know us well and love our sons. In fact, they

love both our sons and daughter,’ says the soft-spoken Singh.

And indeed they do love Singh’s children. Their next-door neighbour Manu Chandela does not even

call the Indian cricket captain Mahendra or Mahi, but Yahiya. She literally argues with all reporters for

writing what, she maintains, was totally untrue: that Dhoti drank four litres of milk every day before

starting his practice. ‘It was only a glassful, how can someone drink four litres? He is a cricketer, not a

wrestler,’ quips Chandela, adding: ‘No one does proper research.’ She has got clippings of newspaper

articles to show such ‘baseless’ writings. ‘No one made efforts to check out Dhoni. He was not a gagman

for the Railways, but a simple, humble travelling ticket inspector executive (TTE) – a ticket collector – at

Kharagpur. How many know Dhoni was – in fact – suspended by the Railways because he routinely

missed duty schedules because he was busy playing cricket.’ No one can argue with Chandela when it

comes to discussing the Indian cricket captain. She knows everything that is there to know about him –

most of it first hand.

Then there is 56-year old Bimla Khandelwal, a homemaker, who is in awe of the Indian cricket skipper

and often meets him and exchanges pleasantries. The usually reticent, Khandelwal agrees to share an

incident which shows the humility of the Indian skipper with uncharacteristic readiness. She recounts:

One day, her children and their friends encouraged her to take pictures of Dhoni. The Indian captain

had come home for a break and was staying with his family. In normal circumstances Khandelwal

would never knock on Dhoni’s door but this one request was a special one from her children who, she

guesses, must have boasted in their class that their mother knew the Indian captain extremely well.

Under pressure, she had to do what her children demanded. Khandelwal gathered ample courage to

knock on the door of her high-profile neighbour and ask to take Dhoni’s photograph. Dhoni himself

opened the door and welcomed his neighbour. ‘I clicked more than fifteen times, but kept on fumbling

with the camera. I actually wasted nearly six, sorry, seven minutes of his time while a huge posse of

journalists waited outside his home. They had come for an impromptu press conference. In fact, I was

very, very nervous.’ Then, the genial Dhoni walked up to Khandelwal and told her: ‘Ma, bahut nervoushain aap (Mother, you are very nervous).’ And then, he quietly took off the lens cap. Khandelwal was

stunned and everyone in the room laughed, but immediately clamped down when Dhoni gave a

disapproving look. ‘She has made a mistake inside this room before a handful of you; we make mistakes

before hundreds of thousands of cricket fans. And much to our discomfort, it is even replayed,’ said the

Indian skipper.

And then, he asked a friend – a trained lensman – to click some photographs. Khandelwal was bowled

over by Dhoni’s attentiveness and kindness. Her mission was over and she made her way home to her

waiting children. There she told them, ‘I didn’t do it, Dhoni did it for you.’

But then, that’s Dhoni. ‘He will never change, even if he becomes the richest cricketer in the world. He

calls me mother. He is my son, I do not like it when newspapers criticize him. He is from a small town,

his heart is in the right place,’ says Khandelwal, her voice choking with emotion. The day rioters stoned

Dhoni’s home after India’s World Cup debacle in the West Indies in 2007, Khandelwal told her

children: ‘Go and protect the home. He is our boy.’ The children rushed out to do some damage control.

They saw some cricket fans, numbering less than hundred, had gathered outside Dhoni’s new home

which was under construction. The fans, claim Khandelwan’s children, had come from outside Ranchi

and were not aware that the cricketer and his family did not live there. When no one came to meet them,

they started throwing stones at the under-construction building. Khandelwal’s children mobilized a

large number of police constables and managed to stave off the rioters.

Devki, when informed of their actions, said she was happy that her son’s goodwill was working in his

absence. And she knows about the goodwill her son has earned and the weight his name carries in the

town.

Missing an audience with him is sacrilegious in Ranchi. Shopkeepers and hoteliers wait for the

moment when he will walk into their arcades and mothers get upset if their sons avoid their cricket

coaching classes. If they miss cricket classes, they are met with laments of how will they become Dhoni?

Who knows, Dhoni could visit the camp if he is in Ranchi and offer a few tips. A photo opportunity

with the city’s megastar is an added attraction for the children. The craze to become a doctor or an

engineer is on a low in Ranchi with everyone wanting to become a cricketer.

‘I keep telling him to keep his head and mind to the ground. He has done that successfully,’ says Devki.

Consider this one. The day he reached Ranchi after winning the triangular series in Australia in 2006,

the Indian skipper wanted to exit from the cargo section because he was told that fans in Ranchi had

turned hysterical and were all heading for the airport to receive their star. When the flight landed, a

security officer went inside the aircraft and informed Dhoni that his request for a quick departure

through the cargo gate has been declined. By whom, asked the Indian cricket captain. The officer

informed him that the request had come from the state Sports Minister Bandhu Tirkey. And then, the

security officer added that Tirkey was waiting at the airport lounge to receive the Indian cricket captain.

Dhoni knew there was no escape. In fact, Tirkey did not wait in the lounge but rushed to the airport

tarmac and pushed everyone aside to grab Dhoni by the arm. And then he told the waiting lensmen:

‘Take the picture. Otherwise, you will never click me alone.’ Nearby, the airport’s top police official made

a similar request and the cameramen happily complied in both situations. Once he was freed, Dhoni

walked out of the airport from the main gate. He did not want to disappoint his fans. In Ranchi, Dhoni,

undoubtedly, is the man for all seasons.

The local media needs him round the clock – he is their best chance for a story, everything he does

and indeed doesn’t, is copy for journalists. He is hustled by cameramen when he drives his bike, goes to

visit a temple or meets friends and politicians.

And if he is not around, the media uses his name to get the day’s best story. There is hype if he wins a

trophy, there’s mayhem if he messes up the show. When it comes to Dhoni, Ranchi loves and hates in

extreme.

For instance, after the World Cup disaster in the West Indies in 2007, wherein India were sent

crashing out of the competition after losing to Bangladesh, a handful of local cameramen bought bricks,

scattered them near his under-construction home and hired labourers to pick them up. For an ordinary

person, it would seem labourers working at Dhoni’s home were busy picking up bricks thrown at his

under-construction home. All news channels flashed this as breaking news: Dhoni’s house demolished.

In another instance, when he led India to the inaugural T20 World Cup victory in 2007, the same

cameramen hired eunuchs to dance outside his house for interesting visuals. Minus Dhoni, Ranchi, it

seems, has little or no news value of its own.

Even those with no connection to cricket want a slice of Dhoni’s fame. Ranchi’s sweetmeat sellers, in an

apparent attempt to cash in on the popularity of the city’s celebrity son, have changed the name of all

their products to boost sales: Ranchi now has Dhoni rasmalai, Dhoni rasgulla, Dhoni gulab jamun,Dhoni barfi and, Dhoni samosa. This renaming might have been singularly unoriginal and seriously

repetitive, but it’s clear they did it with a motive to sell more of their products. Such is the pull of Dhoni.

Stories abound in the town about Dhoni’s 007 vehicles, his number 7 diamond-studded gold

pendant that he always wears. His fetish for the number seven stems from his birth date [he was born on

7 July 1981]. They talk about his bike rides through congested roads, his extremely original hair styles,

even his occasional visits to the Deoria Mata (reincarnation of Durga) temple that lies 61 kilometres

outside Ranchi, and of how a mysterious girl in Ranchi once thought of offering flowers to Dhoni

because she was in love but failed.

And then there is the story of how the legendary Amitabh Bachchan once cancelled his shooting at

the RK Studios in Mumbai’s Chembur area and instead sought an appointment with Dhoni, who was

shooting an ad next door. No, the meeting did not happen because by the time the guards at the studio

Dhoni was shooting went in to inform the cricketer, Dhoni had already packed his bags and left.

Thereafter, the Big B messaged him from his handset. Dhoni was surprised. He did not know the

message had come from the legendary actor. He did not reply. To which, Bachchan wrote in his blog:

‘Dhoni does not reply to my messages.’ An embarrassed Dhoni immediately responded to the star actor.

Everyone across India wants to meet Dhoni. A young Jet Airways attendant says at Ranchi’s Birsa

Munda airport: ‘Why don’t they rename it MS Dhoni airport?’ Has the town’s prodigal son relegated

even its most popular freedom fighter into oblivion? ‘Birsa Munda is history, Dhoni is the future,’

proudly claims the attendant. He is not being emotional when he says this; he is merely being realistic.

Both Singh and Devki realize that today Ranchi is synonymous with Dhoni. Anything and

everything in the town must revolve around him. Consider this: Once, a day after his arrival in Ranchi,

Dhoni and his friends went to Madhuban, a well-known highway eatery on the outskirts of the city. The

owners cleared the place and instantly barricaded the area but failed to handle a swelling crowd that

gathered outside and clogged NH33 that connects Ranchi to Jamshedpur, and further on to Kolkata.

Eventually, riot police had to be requisitioned to clear the road and a near 12 kilometre-long traffic snarl.

That’s the magic of Dhoni. ‘He would overshadow even a Shah Rukh Khan here,’ says Supriya Singh, a

college student in Ranchi. There is no denying that Dhoni enjoys the popularity, but it would be grossly

incorrect to say that he is enamoured by such adulation. In fact, he routinely tells the local media to

restrain itself and totally avoids any personal talk in public – many people are curious about why he

often lands up in his sister’s flat and not in his parental home, but it’s usually to avoid excess publicity –

and remains focused on his game. In Delhi’s Feroze Shah Kotla grounds for the victory celebratory

function after the inaugural T20 World Cup win over Pakistan in the finals at Johannesburg in 2007, he

told the frenetic crowds: ‘It is just a game, just a game. Would you all be here if we had lost the series?’

the then BCCI president Sharad Pawar, sitting on the dais, smiled and nodded his head in approval.

Paan Singh says his God-fearing son has always had a no-nonsense attitude.

Is this humility due to the fact that Dhoni is perhaps the first Indian cricket captain to have made it to

this exalted status minus a Godfather? Dhoni only has his confidence and his ability. Now, his

proximity to the current BCCI president N. Srinivasan has been the talk of India but – in private

conversations – he has reminded many that he became the cricket captain when Srinivasan was not in

that powerful position.

Cricket cognoscenti agree that Dhoni got the India captaincy almost by default: in the wake of the

humiliating defeat handed out by Bangladesh in the first round of the World Cup, an upset Rahul

Dravid decided to quit the job. With India’s one-day fortunes at a nadir, no one seemed to want the

captain’s cap. Tendulkar, the selectors’ first choice for the top job, had indicated his unwillingness – he

has never wanted to lead. When he was made the captain, Tendulkar had happily accepted the mantle

but when he resigned, he had said that the captaincy – and its numerous pressure points and

responsibilities – had severely impacted his batting.

Dhoni, as vice-captain of the national team and the T20 captain, was the natural choice for the job.

There was also a bit of TINA (there is no alternative) factor at the time. However, Dhoni had no

cricketing pedigree, no formal training, and no serious godfather propelling him forward.

But those exact negatives soon converted into positives. He came with raw talent and drive, a humility

that his simple background had hammered into his soul, and an ability to handle the rough better than

the smooth.

No one really knows what makes Dhoni stay cool in the worst of times. His schoolmates claim he was

always like that. ‘He initially played football, and did brilliantly as a goalkeeper. Then he played cricket

and you know what he has become,’ says Subhas Yadav, who went to school with him. Yadav adds that

Dhoni was quiet in class, but explosive in the field. ‘He was a game changer.’

His parents were aware that their son became a star minus a hand of godfather. So they turned

towards the real God, and sought his hand for support. Their neighbours in Ranchi point out that every

time Dhoni goes for a tournament, Devki Devi sits for hours before a small idol of Lord Krishna – it’s her

most personal space in the house – and prays for her son. Devki is confident that India’s supreme god

Vishnu will always support her son.

‘My son has brought fame and wealth to my home. Earlier, MECON officers would not even speak to

him because of my grade. Today, every time India wins a one-day international, I get flowers and sweets

from the general manager. Sometimes, the general manager comes home. This means a lot for a family

like ours,’ says Paan Singh. ‘It happens only because I am Dhoni’s father. Otherwise, MECON GMs do

not distribute flowers and sweets to every MECON employee in town.’

What makes the enigmatic Dhoni tick? A simple, down-to-earth attitude works wonders for the

Indian cricket captain. The parents’ simplicity had an interesting rub-off effect on the son. Dhoni does

not have too many flunkies following him, just his wife and a very small group of friends and family

members. He rarely parties and barring cricket and motor bikes, nothing interests him much.

Take for instance the fact that despite all the hoopla, the publicity and the endorsements, very little

glitz and glamour is associated with Team India’s captain. Even those from the lower strata of society

find him an attractive icon, mostly because they feel he has a positive attitude and cares for the poor and

because he himself belongs to very humble background, he has the power to change things for the

better. Even the nuns at Missionaries of Charity adore him for his philanthropy, as do the doctors who

run the country’s biggest mental asylum in the heart of Ranchi. If you can get Dhoni to visit your

centre, there are ample chances that donations will follow instantly. ‘You need him to create awareness

among people about issues like mental diseases, leprosy and so many social challenges the state faces

every day,’ said Dr. Amitabha Chowdhury, head of the Ranchi Manasik Aryogyashala.

Most people in his home state also remember – with pride – how Dhoni returned the 5,00,000 cash

prize offered by the state government: he wanted it to be spent on the town’s dilapidated roads instead.

He has already got land from the state government to shape his cricket academy where children will be

offered training, at subsidized rates, under the guidance of Indian and international cricketers.

Not just the citizens, but even the gods love his visit to Ranchi. Every visit of his makes the sacred cash

chest at the ancient Deori Mata Temple in Tamar block of Ranchi district, richer by a few thousand

rupees and the beggars sitting on its stairs happier by a few hundreds. ‘He has a heart of gold. He has

given me a handset on which he calls every time he wants to visit the temple,’ quips Manoj Panda, a

priest who personally helps the India captain offer prayers. And then he adds: ‘I always pray to Deori

Mata for his continued success.’

At home, Dhoni brought his elder brother Narendra back from Almora, and asked him to supervise

the construction of his new home and handle other projects. That is his way of engaging his family

members in his success. Those close to him say Dhoni’s intervention actually helped resurrect his

brother’s fledgling career as a real estate consultant. But Narendra who failed to utilize the opportunity,

gave up his business, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and eventually left that for the Aam Aadmi Party.

Family insiders claim Dhoni also helps, whenever he can, his brother-in-law Gautam Gupta who is

into the surgical instruments business. In fact, it was Dhoni’s intervention – he spoke to those who run

the state’s medical business – that helped turn Gupta’s business fortunes.

Dhoni’s advisors and brand managers warn him against being too low profile. Arun Pandey, who

manages Dhoni’s marketing agency, Rhiti Sports, feels the Indian skipper needs to be a little more

outspoken and frank. But in the next instant adds, ‘Perhaps he does not need all this because he is

confident of himself and his game.’

The personal website of India’s publicity-shy cricket skipper took ages to come up. Google and Yahoo

searches about his career don’t yield a lot; Wikipedia and Cricinfo are a little better. Till mid-2009, even

after he had been the skipper of the Blue Billion Express for more than a year, won the 2007 T20 world

cup and topped IPL season one’s player auction at USD 1.5 million, there wasn’t a single profile of him

on the web.

None of that troubled the man himself. ‘I have never been too bothered about marketing myself. I love

to remain rooted to the ground, my game and a handful of my friends,’ says Dhoni, adding: ‘Honestly, it

does not matter to me. I have loved staying away from the big media hype that routinely swamps the

cricketers. I don’t think it is good for my health.’

Ranchi’s most sought-after man loves his home and is proud of his heritage. He wants to remain

rooted to his origins and everyone is loving it – in Ranchi, and elsewhere in India.

4

First Job Blues

The Indian Railways is the world’s largest employer. It has over 35 million people working for it,

including part-time employees. And almost each one of these 35 million will admit that the job comes

with its own peculiarities.

Each time a new minister takes charge of the railways portfolio, a new set of trains are announced –

mostly to the home state of the said minister – and a new set of people join the unique public sector

undertaking (PSU) to do all kinds of oddball jobs which could range from maintaining files on

pensions for an estimated 750,000 widows to marking wagon space every evening before clearing

overnight goods trains for the morning journey.

The fact that the job could be peculiar in nature is never specified on the appointment letter issued by

the Indian Railways, but the reality of it is palpable from the moment one walks into any department of

the railways anywhere in the country. So what is the peculiarity of working with the world’s largest

employer? There are people who join the PSU immediately after a new minister has taken office. They

hardly do any work and their appointment letter – it is a fact – specifies nothing. There are people who

have worked for decades without shaping their careers (read low promotions) but are happy because the

appointment allows them to do odd-ball, part-time jobs. And there are others who hardly come to

office, yet collect their salaries meticulously on time.

Some call it the laze of satisfaction (pun intended) that the job guarantees, especially for the lower-

rung and middle-rung staff. They do not go anywhere, rarely change their jobs or seek transfers. They

love the unique security that comes with a government job in India.

Pray why? The guarantee of life-long employment frees up a large majority to maintain parallel careers

that range from being an insurance agent to a sari seller. And their operations – all within the precincts

of the railways office – are indeed mind-boggling. Every morning these staffers walk into their office late

and – within hours – get busy with their personal work (read business) as if there was no tomorrow.

Rates of saris are discussed – often in loud tones and festive moods – with interested buyers. Others

meanwhile cajole colleagues into buying cigarettes and sweetmeats. The rates offered are of course,

lower than the market rates since sales are confined to the staff. Nearby, those acting as part-time

insurance agents openly discuss monthly or bi-monthly premium payments with existing clients and

desperately seek addresses of new clients.

The parallel business continues briskly throughout the day even as ‘official’ work continues at a snail’s

pace. This is a peculiar life that many railway officials lead with the full knowledge of their seniors. No

one complains, and no one does anything to anyone to stop this unique, part-time trade.

In 2001, Dhoni was Ranchi’s budding cricketer and most definitely not cut out to be a typical railway

employee. He was not the kind of person who could have been slotted into any of the usual – or even

unusual – categories of railway employees. He was obsessed with cricket, it was his life, it was his

everything. His reaction to the job offered by the Railways was expected: he hated it. However, he had

no option but to accept it, mainly because he was unable to find a job in Ranchi. He had to go to

Kharagpur in West Bengal and accept the job that had come to him through the sports quota.

Satyaprakash Krishna, Dhoni’s Jharkhand teammate, had introduced him to the then Divisional

Railway Manager (DRM) of Kharagpur, Animesh K. Ganguly, with hopes of getting him a job.

Ganguly’s wife, Shubhra, now a widow and a resident of Kolkata, fondly recalls: ‘My husband was

looking for a keeper-batsman for the South Eastern Railway team and it was then when Satya brought

this boy to our bungalow in Kharagpur and introduced him as a promising player.’

Sporting a creased T-shirt, Dhoni pleaded with Ganguly for a job and was taken to the SERSA

stadium and made to face 60 deliveries to test his batting prowess. As usual, many of the deliveries went

flying over the boundary. New balls were requisitioned thrice. Eventually, railway officials supervising

the batting test intervened and told Dhoni to stop. The young cricketer was recruited as a ticket

collector.

Dhoni’s friends were overjoyed. While everyone was celebrating with Cola in plastic cups, few noticed

Dhoni ask a friend – he will remain unnamed here – a strange question: ‘Agar ticket check karunga tohcricket kabh khelunga (If I am checking tickets when will I play cricket?)’ His friend did not want to

depress him and replied, ‘Pehley cricket, fir ticket. Mauka poora milega. (First cricket, then ticket. You will

have all the opportunity).’ Back in Ranchi, Dhoni’s parents were overjoyed to read his appointment

letter. His father, wept with joy when he saw his son land a government job, thanks to his cricket. ‘Tere kosarkaari naukri mil gayi, aaj main bahut khush hoon (You have landed a government job, I am very happy),’

he said, embracing his son.

But the father was unable to read his son’s mind. Dhoni was happy for the moment, but he was most

certainly not over the moon with his first job. At a party celebrating his new job, everyone was jubilant

except Dhoni. What will I have to do now, he asked his Ranchi friends? And the friends explained

casually that since his job was that of a ticket collector he would have to leave Ranchi immediately –

which Dhoni hated instantly – and stay in Kharagpur, home to the country’s first Indian Institute of

Technology (IIT) and also the world’s longest railway platform (1072.5 metres).

Ranchi’s rising star was not impressed by the engineering college-longest platform combination,

especially when it could mean taking time away from playing cricket. ‘Mere cricket ka kya hoga? (What

happens to my cricket?)’ he repeatedly asked his friends. No one heard him in the din. Can we talk?

Dhoni was desperate for an answer. No one responded. The party was in full swing.

In all the literature, academic and otherwise, about the Indian Railways, it is difficult to find an

explanation for the decision to build the world’s longest platform in a town that – even now – has little

to offer to the nation other than its engineering college. ‘Barey platform se chhote sheher ka kya hoga (What

would a big platform do for a small town?)’ Dhoni asked his friends. Again, no one replied. They were

just happy that Dhoni had a sarkari job.

No wonder then that the slow pace of life in Khargapur bored Dhoni to death. He disliked the job

right from the first day. He was a man who loved his blistering pace, cricket, and big scores. He was a

young man with abundant energy which was not being channeled. For him trudging along at a ticket

collector’s snail-like pace in Kharagpur was difficult, very difficult. It seemed someone had pushed him

into a near helpless situation.

As a result, the young Dhoni would routinely bunk office and travel back to Ranchi – often in the

dead of the night – to be with his friends. But when he was unable to sneak away from Kharagpur, some

of his colleagues remember seeing a very pensive and lonely Dhoni walk by himself on the platform in

the evenings and nights, obviously wondering how long he would have to remain in Kharagpur. ‘Can I

return to Ranchi?’ he asked his seniors almost every month and received an emphatic ‘No’ as a reply

each time.

But he had to stick with the job to keep his cricketing dream alive. Only the Indian Railways had

offered him the much needed job, thus leaving what his father – and other family members – considered

the world’s best job was out of the question. Dhoni tried hard to fit in and be happy, despite the fact that

it was incredibly tough for him as there was nothing except cricket on his agenda.

He shared a room with Robin Kumar, the South Eastern Railway team captain, and another friend,

Deepak Singh, both of whom loved their respective jobs and Kharagpur, a fact that further depressed

Dhoni. He would often feel homesick and his boss Ganguly caught on to the fact. In a bid to boost his

confidence, Ganguly offered Dhoni mental and emotional support and started calling him home for

meals.

‘This is the best way to get him out of his disappointment and save his cricket,’ Ganguly told his wife,

Shubhra.

Soon, Mahi became a part of the Ganguly household. He would come to their lawns every morning

with fellow cricketers to practice at the nets there. Between 2001 and 2003, Dhoni was a regular at the

DRM’s dining table. ‘Being a simple guy, he would be happy with whatever he was served,’ says Shubhra.

There was Lakshmi, Ganguly’s daughter, who would put oil in Dhoni’s hair, wash it with water and –

actually – comb his hair. For her, he was the bade bhaiya, the elder brother.

But once he returned to his one-room apartment, Dhoni would look lost. His two roommates realized

this and offered a very interesting alternative to ease him out of his homesickness: a daily game of tennis

ball cricket. ‘Tennis ball cricket, what is it all about?’ asked Dhoni, seeing a ray of hope in his desolate life

in Kharagpur.

Interestingly, the game was a life changer, both for Dhoni and the town where matches were played on

18-yard pitches (as compared to the standard, 22-yard pitch). Various teams would plan daylong or

floodlit tournaments and the matches would generate tremendous enthusiasm in various

neighbourhoods. Dhoni – initially unsure about tennis ball cricket – eventually walked onto the field

when a local politician urged him to play a match. Success was instant. Dhoni’s talent was visible from

the very first match, with him blasting deliveries all over the field.

Since then, there has been no looking back for the boy from Ranchi. He would play almost every

alternate day of the week and enjoyed hitting the ball all over the ground. ‘It’s a tennis ball match, after

all,’ he would laugh to himself.

There were some matches where Dhoni was paid small amounts of 400 to 500 rupees by the

organizers, and there were others where he picked up a silver cup or two. Interestingly, these matches

were watched by Kharagpur’s local politicians who admired Dhoni’s batting and would always chip in

their contributions at the end of the game. Dhoni, expectedly, was never reluctant to play the matches. ‘It

helps me forget my duty (as a ticket collector). After the match I get a feeling there will be another match

the next day and I will not have to go back to do that job,’ he would often confide to his roommates.

They agreed. The more you remain in the game, the better are your chances of being picked up for the

big, 22-yard matches, they told Dhoni.

With cricket back in his life, Dhoni was in his element. He first showcased his leadership skills when,

on a balmy day in the fall of 2002 – his team, Durga Sporting, encountered trouble. Dhoni’s club was in

the final of a six-overs-a-side tennis ball tournament being played at the Golkhuli Ground and was

bowled out for just 30 runs. The rivals were cruising happily when an umpiring controversy erupted

over a boundary.

‘The match was all but lost, we decided to walk off in protest. And we thought walking out will make

us heroes,’ recounts Satya, member of Durga Sporting. At this point, Dhoni intervened and pulled

everyone back. ‘Why walk out like cowards over an umpiring decision. Let’s fight, let’s give all we have in

this match. Just remember, we have to bowl well and field better,’ Dhoni told his teammates.

He then quietly asked for the ball. Soma Rao, the Durga Sporting wicketkeeper, recalls: ‘He bowled

brilliantly and had the rival batsmen in all kinds of trouble. I still feel his deliveries thudding into my

gloves behind the wicket and the rival batsmen all at sea.’

Durga Sporting managed to tie the match and then win it through the flip of a coin. That was, in

some ways, the first on-the-field miracle of the cricketer who would eventually be the Indian cricket

captain.

So it was in the sleepy little town of Kharagpur, while playing many games of tennis ball cricket that

Dhoni developed his trademark shot, which has often helped India win many crucial matches, at both

home and abroad. Termed the Dhoni Lappa or Helicopter Shot by his friends, the shot involves virtually

digging a yorker – it is a whipping shot – over the mid-wicket boundary on to the stands. When he first

started hitting the shot, his friends warned him. This is not traditional, textbook cricket, they argued.

‘Come on, does anyone care as long as runs are coming on the board?’ argued Dhoni. For him, the shot

was an innovation of a friend, Santosh Lal, and would stay with him for the rest of his cricketing life.

The friends still argued against it. But later, when they saw that Dhoni had made it a part of his

repertoire and was using it to great success, they eagerly waited for the shot. Kharagpur – expectedly –

was happy about his lappa shots, ostensibly because it brought great wins which they loved. In short, the

man from Ranchi was the most sought after in Kharagpur for masala cricket.

Dhoni was now a different man from the one who had initially been forlorn and lost in Kharagpur. He

was loving every moment of his stay here. Fast-paced cricket and the excitement that accompanies it,

was back in his life. And his unorthodox shot had made Dhoni a household name in the sleepy town.

‘He would never give up,’ says Siddhartha Chatterjee, under whose captaincy Dhoni played for

Sangha Shree, another local club of Kharagpur. And the affable Dhoni, recounts Chatterjee, would not

charge a rupee while playing for either Durga Sporting or Sangha Shree, grateful that they had brought

cricket back into his life in Kharagpur. But Dhoni charged all other clubs 2000 rupees per match,

making him the most expensive tennis ball cricket player in Kharagpur.

When there was no cricket, Dhoni and his friends would spend long hours chatting on the platform of

Kharagpur railway station. Sometimes they would go there in the evenings, sometimes even in the dead

of night. Once, he and his friends borrowed some big bed sheets from a neighbour and covered

themselves to spook the night guards on the platform. It was a full moon night, and the guards – in their

usual relaxed mood – were playing cards. And suddenly they saw those six figures in white. They

panicked, screamed and ran, leaving their bags and firearms behind. The next day newspapers carried

the report of ‘platform ghosts’ and an inquiry was initiated. And once it was found that someone had

played a prank, the railway officials quietly dropped their probe. Lucky for Dhoni and his friends, the

railway officials could not track ‘men behind the prank’. It could have been serious, ostensibly because

one of the guards developed chest pains on seeing the ‘ghosts’.

But not everyone in Kharagpur was happy; they cared two hoots for Dhoni’s lappa shot.

Unfortunately for Dhoni these were the very people who were his seniors in the Railways. They were the

ones who routinely tracked Dhoni’s missing duty hours and made it a sticking point so that they could

grill the young cricketer about his absence whenever he would walk into the office. Initially, Dhoni tried

hard to downplay the crisis, often lying through his teeth, and hoping that the harassment would stop.

But when the pressure became intolerable, an exasperated Dhoni asked his seniors: ‘Why can’t I work for

the Railways from my home city?’ That will not work, retorted his seniors.

That meant Dhoni had to work full five days of the week and bid farewell to his beloved game.

The seniors meant what they said and kept a close track of Dhoni’s movements. There would be times

when some flunky of his bosses would casually walk up to his room to see whether or not Dhoni was in

Kharagpur. At times, confided Dhoni to some of his friends, that the stalking was becoming a little

unbearable. Yet, Paan Singh would not let his son leave the Railways. Dhoni was going through hell but

couldn’t do anything about it. ‘I am caged. No one wants me to leave Kharagpur,’ he once told a friend

over the phone.

But things eventually changed. Dhoni got a chance to get out of the city when he was called for the

trials for the selection of the Railways Ranji team in Delhi’s Karnail Singh Stadium in the summer of

2002. Dhoni was overjoyed. The time had come for him to leave behind the small town games and

head out towards better and more challenging cricketing pastures. His friends claim that Dhoni was as

thrilled as a school kid when the train moved out of Ranchi and headed towards the Indian capital.

But the trip turned out to be a nightmare. The Delhi trials, by all means, were an unmitigated disaster

right from the word go. Many called it a ‘mere eyewash’. Being from a small town, young Dhoni didn’t

like Delhi at all. For him, it was a city without any warmth and lacked the emotional touch that’s

common in smaller towns. Not many in the hotel, where the team stayed, spoke to Dhoni who – a day

before the match – spent his time wandering in the huge Connaught Place shopping complex. He had –

in his mind – come to the capital to escape a mundane life of mediocre cricket and yet he felt terribly

homesick.

When the game started the next day, lady luck was most definitely not smiling for Dhoni. The

selectors seemed to have some pre-conceived notions about him. It seemed to Dhoni that all of them

were convinced that he was a hopeless case because his batting made absolutely no impression on them

at all. Probably, they had made up their minds about someone already. And there was no way the

selectors would have asked him to have a go with the ball. However, they did tell him that he was good

behind the wickets and was asked to keep by one of the selectors, but only for two overs. A friend who

told him about the selectors’ benevolence in offering those two overs also told Dhoni that he had been

rejected. ‘But they did not allow me to play for long,’ was Dhoni’s feeble argument. ‘Don’t argue, they are

cricket selectors. In India, you should always treat them as Gods,’ was the cautious yet stern advice.

Back in the dressing room, he wondered whether the world’s richest cricket board should develop a

system of telling the selectors to change their method of gauging talent in short spans of ten to fifteen

minutes. Dhoni knew that the procedure was faulty and was very tempted to argue but could not

muster enough courage. No one argues with a cricket selector in India, he remembered his friends telling

him before he’d boarded the train for Delhi. A crestfallen Dhoni returned to his room, eventually going

back home in total despair.

Back in Ranchi, he sat down to narrate his Delhi experience to his friends: ‘I do not know why I was

neglected so badly at the trials. Do selectors expect miracles from every player? Can someone perform

brilliantly right from the word go? Why are they so impatient? There must be a way forward. There must

be a way to change things. The selectors must change their mindset. Otherwise, people from smaller

cities will never get a chance to get into the national selection. Cricket in India must grow with

contributions from all states.’

There is nothing on paper to prove this one, but the Delhi trials perhaps upset – and possibly

disgusted – Dhoni so much, that he started hating his job with the Railways even more. He started

avoiding going into office for days, weeks and ultimately, for months. He told his flat mates that he

would have resigned right after the debacle at the trials but for his parents, who were against losing the

security of a government job. At times Dhoni would not visit Ranchi lest he wound up arguing with his

father about leaving the job. Paan Singh, who had already had a number of run-ins with his son over

the issue, finally asked his wife if she could intervene and prevent Dhoni from leaving his job. ‘Usko boloyeh sarkari naukri hain (Tell him it is a government job),’ Paan Singh told his wife. But the words had

little bearing on Dhoni who seemed determined to quit his job at the first given opportunity.

Matters came to a head in mid-2004, when the Railways top brass – in an attempt to teach Dhoni a

lesson for not attending office – issued him a show-cause notice. Dhoni did not reply. It seemed the time

had come for the showdown with his seniors in Kharagpur. Eventually, the Railways fired him from the

job and far from being repentant or contrite, Dhoni heaved a sigh of relief.

For him, the sacking was a blessing in disguise. Confident of his career in cricket, he threw the

crumpled letter in a corner of his room in Kharagpur and headed back home to Ranchi.

Though his family was upset with the decision, Dhoni was not worried. One evening he walked into

the living room of his long-time friend Goutam Das, an ESPN reporter in Ranchi, looking for advice.

Das, his wife, Sonali (the chief of bureau of the Ranchi edition of the Times of India) and their daughter

could see tension writ large on Dhoni’s face.

Das told him not to worry and instantly called his friend, Surya Narayan Bhattacharya, general

manager (personnel) with the state-owned Indian Airlines (now Air India) and asked him to consider

Dhoni as a brand ambassador for Indian Airlines. Das was confident that the request would not go

unheeded. And there were reasons for his thinking so. Bhattacharya, who had majored from the Xavier’s

Labour Relations Institute in Ranchi, knew and liked Dhoni and had often discussed his possible

employment with the state-run carrier. But sadly, Bhattacharya could not offer good news: ‘Ektu aageyboltey parley na, Shib Shankar Pal ke jey sign korey felechi (Couldn’t you have called me a little earlier? I

have just signed Shib Shankar Pal).’

‘See, we all told you not to worry. That he was thinking about you shows that you were on his radar. If

we had called Surya a couple of weeks earlier, he would have dropped Pal like a hot potato. It is not his

fault, the delay was from our side,’ Das told Dhoni. For Das, the message was clear: Dhoni was being

noticed by the corporate world.

It took some time but, finally, Dhoni had his day. For one reason or another, the Indian selectors had

been unable to finalise a permanent keeper for the national side for close to four years, indulging in a

strange game of musical chairs with a host of them. Rahul Dravid replaced Nayan Mongia after the

latter was injured in the 1999 World Cup and Syed Saba Karim could not run the show for long

because he was also plagued by injuries. Dravid managed the show till late 2004. Vijay Dahiya, Ajay

Ratra, Deep Dasgupta, Parthiv Patel, and Dinesh Karthik all took turns keeping wickets, even as Dhoni

waited in the wings with bated breath. Yet, the selectors – for reasons unknown – continued to ignore

him.

It wasn’t until September 2004 that he was picked as the second wicketkeeper after Karthik, for the

India ‘A’ team’s ODI tour of Zimbabwe and Kenya. Midway through the series Karthik was called to join

the national ODI team headed for the England series and Dhoni got his India colours against

Zimbabwe. He won the day for India by scalping 11 victims in the one dayer (seven catches and four

stumpings) and creating a record (though he shares it with two others). He also quick fired 45 runs off

48 balls.

Thereafter came the one day tri-nation tournament in Kenya involving India A, the hosts and

Pakistan A, which was to become the stepping stone for Dhoni’s eventual national recognition. Still, he

wasn’t madly successful: in the opening match, India, under the captaincy of Sairaj Bhautule, lost the

match by 20 runs. Dhoni, an opener, scored a paltry 8 runs.

But Dhoni was in his element as India walloped Pakistan in the next match and won by four wickets.

His 70 runs helped him win his first Man of the Match award. They notched another victory in the next

match, this time by ten wickets against the hosts. Though Dhoni was not required to bat, he was

content with four catches and a stumping.

He scored his first international century in the same series when, on 16 August 2004, he smashed 120

off 122 balls (ten boundaries and two sixes) along with opener Gautam Gambhir, who also scored a

century. The two put on 208 runs for the second wicket – from just 192 balls – and helped India amass

a winning total of 330 against Pakistan who collapsed for just 209. In the last match before the final,

India again beat Pakistan by eight wickets. Dhoni, who had scored 119 not out, with nine fours and five

sixes, overshadowed Pakistan skipper Misbah-Ul-Haq’s 106. India won the final, again against Pakistan,

by six wickets though Dhoni could score just 15 runs.

But he was on a high.

The boy from Ranchi now had the selectors’ attention. They took a good look at Dhoni and decided

to include him in the Board President’s XI in Jaipur against the South Africans who came immediately

after the departure of the Australian team. Dhoni did his bit to keep himself in the headlines. He kept

well and scored 39 in the only innings in which he batted.

That Dhoni was on a roll became evident when he replaced Karthik when India went next door to

Bangladesh for a Test and ODI series. Though he muffed his first show at the MA Aziz Stadium in

Chittagong (run out for nought), India won the day by a bare margin of 11 runs. The second ODI

turned out to be a nightmarish experience for Dhoni as India – with Tendulkar, Dravid, Harbhajan

Singh, and Irfan Pathan being rested – lost to the hosts who were otherwise known as cricket’s favourite

whipping boys. India, however, won the third match and the series 2-1. Dhoni faced just two balls in

India’s huge total of 348, one of which he sent out flying over the boundary for a glorious six.

Thereafter, two things happened almost simultaneously. Skipper Saurav Ganguly told the selectors

that he would persist with Dhoni for the ODIs and Karthik for the Test series. ‘Having Dhoni for the

ODI makes sense for the team because he has the pace. We need such firepower and Dhoni is matching

our expectations as a middle-order batsman. He is equally brilliant behind the stumps,’ Ganguly told

reporters in the presence of John Wright, the team coach. A month later in Dhaka, Wright told

journalists covering the Bangladesh series that they were actually seeing a person who had all the

capabilities to one day lead the Indian cricket team. ‘He will soon mature into one of India’s finest

players. I would say he has all the potential to become a team leader. He understands his game well and

understands his teammates,’ quipped Wright.

Many in India heard Wright loud and clear. And among those who saw the writing clearly on the wall

were senior officials of Indian Railways, Dhoni’s first employers. They didn’t want people to know that

they had sacked Dhoni because he wanted to play cricket. Instead, they wanted to tell the world that

they were his first employers and that Dhoni would soon be with them. In short, they were desperate to

sign Dhoni, this time on the cricketer’s term.

But Dhoni was abroad. The Railway officials waited for the cricketer to return from Bangladesh. Once

he was home, the officials knocked at his door at the MECON colony home with a contract letter. This

time, their offer was unconditional: Dhoni need not attend office or sign papers, but just play for the

Railways team on a salary that would be five times the amount he once earned as a ticket collector. ‘You

don’t have to do anything, sir. Just play and go home. You can lead the side, do anything you want but

since you started your career with the Railways, it’s quite natural that you must come back to us. And we

have all the right to seek your services. I am sure you will agree,’ pleaded Gyanendra Singh, a senior

general manager even as Dhoni sat quietly. The Railway officials had a feeling that Dhoni would refuse

the offer. So they coaxed Paan Singh and pleaded with him to push his son to rejoin his first employer.

Singh, who had always maintained that he wanted Dhoni to have a government job, asked the Railway

officials to wait outside and turned to his son. And then he said to his son: ‘Unko bolo jaane ke liye (Tell

them to go).’ Dhoni walked out and turned his back on this ‘very generous’ offer. Those close to him say

that the Delhi trials, where he was treated unfairly, were uppermost on Dhoni’s mind.

But there was a downside to the rejection. Now, Dhoni was without a domestic team. However, he was

confident of another offer coming his way, which did finally come but towards the end of 2004, when

Das again got a call from Bhattacharya.

This time, the general manager of India’s biggest airline network had already received a call from the

office of Praful Patel, the then Union Minister for Civil Aviation. In fact, Patel’s all-powerful secretary,

Ashok Aggarwal, had called Bhattacharya and asked him to sign Dhoni without any delay. ‘I have

already got the clearance for our friend. We are waiting for him. Do I come to Ranchi or will Dhoni come

to Kolkata to sign the papers?’ Bhattacharya was brimming with excitement. So was Das.

Dhoni was called over to Das’s house almost immediately and the message conveyed. Dhoni was

elated and asked Sonali to prepare some kheer, his favourite sweet dish. As Sonali went inside the

kitchen, Dhoni hugged Das. Hours later, he ate the kheer and left as he had come, quietly.

‘Any other cricketer would have made a mega announcement. See he didn’t tell anyone. Hope he

continues to keep things simple in his life,’ remarked Sonali as the couple walked up to a framed image

of Shirdi Sai Baba on the living room wall to pray. They thanked the almighty for all he had done for

Ranchi’s most promising cricketer.

5

The Buck Stops Here

All those involved in the willow game in the subcontinent – including those who play as well as those

who follow it from outside the boundary – will agree: No meeting of India’s cricket selectors is free of

surprises. Idiosyncrasies have been their forte for generations. They have time and again messed up the

selection and gotten away with it as if there were no tomorrow. They have picked favourites, ignored

classy players and even pushed some for cash (as evident in a sting camera operation by the Noida-

based India TV in 2011). Interestingly, the genial Mohinder Singh Amarnath, a former World Cupper

and himself a selector from 2010-2013 had, during his cricketing days branded the national selectors as

a bunch of jokers. His denouncement of the selectors came in 1988, six years after India had won the

Prudential World Cup at Lord’s in a final where Amarnath was adjudged the Man of the Match. The

chief selector at the time, Raj Singh Dungarpur was expectedly seething with anger at Amarnath’s

statement and promptly called for his sack.

And when Amarnath, in a twist of fate, was included by the BCCI as one of national selectors in 2010,

he told friends in private conversation that he had routine run-ins with his colleagues in his efforts to

make the selection process more transparent. ‘No one wants to change, everyone wants to take

politically-correct decisions,’ Amarnath told his friends.

There are countless stories about the selectors and the one who leads the pack. The current leader of

the Gang of Five is Sandeep Patil. The former flashy batsman replaced one-time Indian opener and

skipper Krishnamachari Srikkanth in September 2012 as the head of the selection committee. Though

Patil is yet to face tough questions from the media, his predecessor Srikkanth was known for his flip

flops, occasionally failing to justify selections which seemed to many as being based on nothing more

than sheer favouritism. Worse, Srikkanth would not answer straight questions and was known for

instructing reporters – through his conduits – just before a press conference, not to ask tough questions.

Consider the incident that took place during the press briefing that followed the selection meeting for

the Asia Cup 2012. Srikkanth, tired of constant criticism, blasted a scribe, asking him to shut up and

added, ‘You keep quiet. Aap aise googly bol-bol ke baat karega toh mai bhi gussa ho jaega. Aap mere ko unglidaloge toh mere se kya expect karte ho. (If you bowl a googly then I will get angry. If you provoke me, I will

also give it back).’

And what was the question that upset Srikkanth so much? The reporter had asked him to clarify his

reasons for resting Virender Sehwag for the series in light of the rumours that the Delhi opener was

shunted out because he did not see eye-to-eye with skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni. It was believed that

the two had a private showdown in Australia as well, evident from the press conference on 21 February

2012 where Virender Sehwag, after putting in a quality fielding show at Brisbane against Sri Lanka as a

stand-in captain, minced no words in giving it back to skipper Dhoni, who had earlier cited poor

fielding as the reason behind the rotation policy of three of the senior-most batsmen in the side: Sachin

Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, and Sehwag.

The Delhi opener had pulled off a stunner to get rid of his Lankan counterpart Mahela Jayawardene in

the Brisbane ODI. He had flown to his left at midwicket to pocket a superb catch, countering Dhoni’s

fielding jibe in style.

The journalist did not pursue his line of questioning with Srikkanth. Further, many of the journalists

who attended that conference told him to abstain from asking controversial questions. They were senior

reporters who were speaking from past experience.

In India, cricket journalists rarely argue with the selectors. Here cricket is not next to religion, cricket isreligion and it is considered a sacrilege to ask offending questions, even if the selectors have picked more

misses than hits in the side. The misses could include picking a cricketer – because of his proximity to

the then skipper – out of a seven-year wilderness straight from his Florida holiday, thereby neglecting

consistent players who helped a state win the Ranji Trophy, the biggest domestic tournament. The

selectors expect reporters to not question their decisions and report the details simply as offered by

them. Such is the level of their sensitivity that even an interpretation by a cricket journalist is misjudged,

as is an inference by a cricket writer. The BCCI – claim all those who cover the game – is hypersensitive

about any critical analysis and the selectors themselves are super touchy about anything they see in

print or television about themselves and their decisions. And in cricket-crazy India, everyone needs the

selector to be on the right side of journalism, especially in today’s high-pressure environment of breaking

news.

The selectors obviously love such adulation and routinely give out relatively ‘secret’ information to

various reporters, especially those who play ball with them, the board chairman and of course, the

captain and coach. There have been times when, during a tournament, certain newspapers’ columns

have been written by the team’s official spokesperson instead of the reporters themselves. There have also

been times when the chief selector (Krishnamachari Srikkanth) has been a part of a news channel

(CNN-IBN) as one of their panelists and routinely offered them exclusive dope about players.

And journalists have loved it. When the legendary Sachin Tendulkar huffed and puffed to his

hundredth century in first-class cricket, Peter Lalor, a seasoned Australian writer, expressed shock on

seeing Indian journalists lining up for autographs. ‘Everyone seems to be on right side of cricket in India.’

He should know. A few years ago, when the BCCI was looking to fill the slot of an official spokesperson,

the biggest chunk of calls came from cricket reporters and sports editors.

Ever since he was named as the skipper of the side – the first honours coming his way at Delhi’s Taj

Palace hotel in September 2007 as India’s T20 squad got ready to depart for the inaugural World Cup to

be held in South Africa – Mahendra Singh Dhoni had been made aware of the pressures of the politics

of the game by his friends in Ranchi and Kolkata. While he had enough public exposure, Dhoni was

not prepared for the media blitz that targets the Indian cricket captain. However, he was well aware of the

tensions that emerge especially around the time when a team was selected for an upcoming tournament

and only a handful of players were picked and many dropped by the captain and the five selectors.

Dhoni had a strange relationship with cricket writers. He valued only a few and for him, the rest were

mere troublemakers who would revel in turning unsubstantiated gossip into headlines, both on

television and morning dailies.

‘The best way to handle [the media – especially the cricket writers] is not to be politically correct,’

Dhoni told his long time friend, Arun Pandey (now his business partner). Dhoni’s subtle statement,

immediately after he became skipper, pointed at those contentious stories the newspapers printed after

getting ‘briefed’ by ‘BCCI insiders’ (read selectors). He hated the way the media had painted him a

‘villain’ who pushed Dravid out of the captaincy, especially when Dravid himself had told the selectors

he wanted a break from the top job. But a section of media still blamed Dhoni.

Dhoni had first-hand knowledge of the way selectors functioned before and after meetings – meant to

be completely secret – at five-star hotels across the country. The pressure of handling the selectors was

high and Dhoni knew he would have to rein them by taking some tough calls and then sticking to them

to prove himself right. Dhoni’s friends told him it was a tall order and there would be times when he

would find himself alone with no backers. But Dhoni seemed ready for it.

His friend Pandey warned him for a second time – no, it is not that easy, he told Dhoni. Dhoni could

argue and get the team he wanted. But then, he must lead the team to repeated wins. ‘Your wins must

outweigh the losses,’ Pandey told Dhoni. That, in short, would be the only way a captain could prove

his point and silence the selectors and of course, critics.

In India, this is a big gamble for a skipper. But if a skipper can manage both, as Saurav Ganguly did

during the 2002-2004 years, he lives to rule the day. ‘You must have courage and guts if you want to

succeed in leading the team,’ Pandey had cautioned Dhoni the day he was named skipper following the

sudden resignation of Rahul Dravid. The Wall, true to character, had submitted his resignation letter

after a glittering BCCI function in New Delhi, and then coolly gone out for dinner with some of his

confidants. He did not make any public statements and thus, triggered a million speculations across

India’s 250-plus news channels about his sudden resignation.

Dhoni was named the skipper with little fanfare. Expectedly, speculation hit the roof and news

channels resumed their mad cycle of breaking news. Virtually all channels planned special shows that

night with former cricketers (invited as guests on panels and discussions). Almost all shows made

bizarre speculations based on inside information from the world’s richest cricket board.

Dhoni did not ignore all this at all, and genuinely wondered – for a while – what he was getting into.

‘I will have to handle it (the pressure) really well; I cannot and will not complain. I know how to handle

the media. If I respect them, they will value me and return that respect. Do not worry,’ he told his parents

on the phone from Delhi, where he was resting with his teammates. Little did he know that very soon he

would be faced with a situation as captain of the team that would prove to be his first acid test with the

Indian selectors, and, of course, the troublesome Indian media. His decision would be loved and hated

in equal measure by those playing the game as well as the millions following it.

The incident took place on the sunny Sunday afternoon of 20 January 2008 in Mumbai. The national

selection committee of BCCI was scheduled to meet at the grand Taj Mahal Hotel overlooking the

majestic Gateway of India. Scores of yachts, trawlers, motor dinghies, and tugboats were moored in the

calm Arabian Sea. In between the hotel and the imposing structure of the Gateway stood numerous

outdoor broadcast vans of various television channels, their technicians busy laying silver coloured

cables through the side entrance of the Taj. The preparations were for the press conference that was to

follow the BCCI Selection Committee meeting for the ODI series that would follow the Test series Down

Under.

The selectors had already offered the television channels a byte for their morning broadcasts by saying

the meeting would not take long and the presser would be earlier than usual. To the reporters this

indicated that there might not be any surprises in the side. Still, 70-odd reporters waited in the hotel’s

reception with bated breath – some of them who were considered ‘knowledgeable’ even had headlines

ready to roll. There were others who left the hotel to have grilled veggie sandwiches and sweetened tea at

shacks close to the Gateway of India. Those were reporters from the dailies with time on their side.

For reasons unknown, the selectors appeared serious and refrained from dropping their customary

hints to the reporters about possible changes in the side. This was a departure from what had become a

routine practice for the selectors – leaking a name or two to trigger the news rush on broadcast channels.

Were they hiding something, wondered the waiting journalists. Minutes before starting the meeting – to

select the national team for February’s triangular ODI series in Australia, titled the CB series – the five

selectors had asked the waiters to open the eight feet-high curtains of the hall for the sunlight to filter in.

As per the agenda, there was just one major dilemma facing the selectors: whether or not to recall former

captain Rahul Dravid into the team. However, there was other problem, which revolved around the

composition of the pace bowling department, weakened by the heel injury-induced absence of Zaheer

Khan. The opening bowler had been completely ruled out for the forthcoming tri-series and also the

one-off T20 international against hosts Australia that was to follow the tri-series.

Dravid had lost his place in the one-day squad controversially, after a string of poor scores against

Australia in the home series in 2007. The selectors had then picked Sehwag in his place – who had also

performed badly – for the first two ODIs against the visiting Pakistan team. ‘He needs a break very badly,’

chief selector Dilip Vengsarkar had commented after the selection meeting.

However, The Wall had retained his place in the Test side headed to Australia and had rediscovered

quite a bit of his vaunted form.

In making a decision the selectors had to consider other factors: most important among them was the

lack of form of Yuvraj Singh. Dravid had been asked to open in the Test series, so that Singh could find a

slot in the side. Also in the reckoning was Virender Sehwag, who had opened the day in the Perth Test

on 26 January 2008 with considerable success and was in the run for an ODI berth. Newspaper reports

had earlier said that the selectors were tempted to give back Dravid his ODI slot, especially with young

middle-order batsmen Robin Uthappa and Rohit Sharma not being in the best of form.

Also on the agenda was anything else that the captain would seek from the board.

Thus began the meeting.

After initial deliberations, it was time for video-conferencing with the skipper from Australia on the

final selection. The Test series was over and the ODIs about to start, in between was the selection

meeting. It was expected that those not finding a place in the new squad would return to India. As the

projector was switched on, the selectors were greeted by the images of a casually dressed Dhoni,

accompanied by vice-captain Yuvraj Singh, sporting his trademark baseball cap.

For the next ten seconds, claimed one selector later, both sides checked each other out on their

respective screens. Videoconferencing, if not handled well, can always mess up situations. Once the

selectors realized that Dhoni and Singh were watching them and could hear them loud and clear, they

were ready to commence discussions.

However, even before the selectors could start their deliberations on the ODI format, Dhoni said he

had something to say and that it was important. ‘Kindly bear with me, sirs,’ he said politely, triggering

both surprise and silence in the room. A curious waiter who had been about to leave the room but had

halted near the door was signaled by one of the selectors, probably Dilip Vengsarkar, to leave

immediately. Being a part of the system, Vengsarkar knew the reasons and routes of leaks from such

meetings too well.

Suddenly, the focus was on Dhoni. The selectors, though surprised by Dhoni’s sudden request,

remained calm. Perhaps they knew what was coming, but still wanted him to say it. The Indian skipper

did not mince his words when he went on to ask for the exclusion of Saurav Ganguly, the former skipper

and – in many ways – his mentor, from the ODI side. ‘I think you will have to agree to my demand. And

listen, I am not alone here with this observation, even Yuvraj feels the same, so does our trainer Gregory

King and there are enough reasons for it,’ said Dhoni.

The selectors were stumped.

‘Fielding is indeed an issue with Dada, he is very, very slow,’ explained a calm and composed Dhoni,

adding that King, who had been keeping a tab on the fitness of Indian players, also believed that apart

from the fielding abilities of the pugnacious left-hander, it was Ganguly’s poor running between the

wickets that posed a serious problem. ‘We cannot have him in the side and must have a replacement. In

fact, we have thought about the replacement already,’ persisted Dhoni.

The selectors – Dilip Vengsarkar, Ranjib Biswal, and Venkatapathy Raju – didn’t know what had hit

them. They had not seen such a steely and sure captain. In fact, they had been keen to retain Ganguly

in the one-day team. But Dhoni simply did not agree. He had different ideas and informed the selectors

that it did not serve much purpose to include a player who could break down at some stage of the one-

day tour. The argument against Ganguly also included the point that he was not of much use either in

the outfield or infield and his fitness became an issue after 40 overs. In fact, Ganguly’s lack of fitness had

been an issue even during the one-day series against Pakistan at home the previous year. It did not

become a full blown affair because of the tremendous form the left-hander exhibited, striking a double

hundred, a century and a near one to top 500 runs against the neighbours in 2007.

‘What about the runs he gives to the side, Dhoni? Can you disagree?’ Vengsarkar asked. Interestingly,

this was the second time Vengsarkar was pushing for the former Indian captain’s inclusion in the side.

He had earlier asked for a rethink on the fourth day of the Perth Test. Not just that, Vengsarkar was also

aware of the personal request the former Indian skipper had made to him some time ago: that he wanted

a big farewell, something like a one-day series in Australia. It would be, for Ganguly, a great way to cap

his career that had flourished Down Under in the fall of 2003, the year India also reached the finals of

the ICC World Cup in South Africa.

But his suggestion was met with a strong counter argument from Dhoni who said he had studied –

along with King – the pitches in Australia and was convinced a slow player like Ganguly would have

serious trouble meeting expectations of the team leadership. To argue his defence, Dhoni ironically

raised a point that Ganguly himself had brought up some years ago – that it was important to push in

young blood in the side. The performance of his boys at the inaugural T20 World Cup in South Africa

had indicated their fitness, which was becoming an important issue with those selected for the shorter

version of the game. It was, Dhoni argued, nothing but power play in the ODI.

Biswal, a selector from East Zone and reportedly close to the former Indian skipper, argued the latter’s

case further. He said the series was not a T20 game but an ODI. ‘The logic of a T20 game is different

from a proper one-day match. So where is the problem?’ he asked. Even that did not pass muster. ‘Fitness

is fairly important in a one-day match,’ Dhoni countered.

Sitting next to his captain, Yuvraj Singh now chipped in. He said he did not disagree that Ganguly

was still useful for the runs, but he – like Dhoni – felt the fielding ability of the Bengal left-hander was a

major handicap. ‘The idea to stop a run and ease pressure on the fielding side is simply not there

anymore with Dada. Extra runs always mess your show when you are playing an ODI,’ countered

Dhoni, and then offered what the selectors later described as a masterstroke of explanation. This one

was scientific and straight from the captain who had ample backing from King who was seated next to

Dhoni and was armed with sheaf of papers and his favourite laptop.

The analysis was accurate and had the selectors flummoxed. It was the first time that a scientific

argument was put forward to get rid of slow players from a cricket team. Dhoni continued: If India was

fielding to Australia’s batting and two of Australia’s best batsmen, Michael Clarke and hard-hitting

Mathew Hayden were at the crease, the chances were that a poor fielder would allow Clarke to score a

run even if it was not there. If that happened, it would increase the risk factor of having Hayden blasting

another boundary or a six on the very next ball because he would know that one fielder is weak and

chances are that he would continue to misfield. World over, argued King, batsmen have always gained

confidence whenever fielders have faltered and bowlers have gone wayward with line and length.

Now, King was talking and backing Dhoni’s argument that if such a situation actually emerged and

Mathews hit a sixer, the total runs off the over would then be seven. In the case of a boundary, the total

would be five. ‘Now an alert fielder, by saving the first single, would eventually save the next six or four

runs as well,’ argued King, supported by Dhoni and Yuvraj.

It was a presumption that had been arrived at scientifically. While no one knew who had really helped

put the theory in place for Dhoni to argue his case, the selectors suspected it was the handiwork of the

no-nonsense King who had worked very hard to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the team.

The idea was to weed out the weak legs. Ganguly and Dravid just happened to be at the wrong end of

that scientific argument.

Dhoni’s assertiveness made it a foregone conclusion that Ganguly would not be needed in the one-

day series. He also removed Dravid from the side, his job made easy because The Wall had not been part

of the Indian ODI team against Pakistan when the visitors came to India the previous year. In one shot,

the young lad from Ranchi had got rid of two former Indian captains from the side. The decision,

undoubtedly, was a tough one.

The selectors knew they had taken a tough call. However, during the tension-ridden video conference,

no one asked Dhoni whether his decision to drop Ganguly from the ODI team would impact the

morale of the side as it went in for the fourth Test in Adelaide.

The responsibility of breaking the news to Ganguly fell on Biswal: he’d initially told India’s Test

captain Anil Kumble about the impending move, but Kumble was very, very reluctant to break the news

to the former Indian skipper. Relations between the two had been slightly strained ever since Ganguly

had sidelined Kumble throughout the World Cup 2003 in favour of the turbantor, Harbhajan Singh.

The genial Kumble put the ball squarely back in Biswal’s court and gently told him to break the news to

Ganguly.

Biswal did the needful by relaying the news to a stunned Ganguly. The former skipper, obviously, did

not like the decision and quietly conveyed the same to some of his close journalist friends from Kolkata.

As soon as the meeting was over and the announcements made at the press conference, news channels

went berserk with the news of the axing of two former skippers from the one-day side. The decision was

provocative enough for irate fans to take to the streets in Kolkata – a city known for its extreme passions

– and burn effigies of the Indian skipper.

Even in Ranchi, Dhoni’s hometown, scores of Ganguly supporters conducted candle night protests

outside the home of the Indian skipper. How could Dhoni do this to his mentor, screamed his fans?

‘You deserted Ganguly,’ read one poster. ‘Dhoka Diya Ganguly ko, (You have betrayed Ganguly,’) read

another.

Passions ran high in the streets of Ranchi, which had a sizeable Bengali population. For them, it was

nothing short of an insult of the mentor (read Ganguly). And that the incident happened after the left-

hander had worked hard to get Dhoni in the side in the first place bothered many to no end.

‘I had to intervene and tell the crowd to back off and not stone Dhoni’s home,’ said Mahadev Sen,

Ranchi’s veteran cameraman. The crowds, claimed Sen, retreated only after Dhoni’s father told them

that he would like to speak to the Indian captain and get ‘an answer’ for the upset Ganguly fans.

Meanwhile, in the usually peaceful city of Bangalore, solidarity for Dravid was rampant. Groups of

students marched through the streets of Karnataka’s capital city, holding placards which variously

proclaimed: ‘The Wall can never be breached’, ‘Impregnable Wall’, and ‘The Wall does not talk, does not

break. Dirty pushes can never break the Wall’.

News of the tensions reached the shores of faraway Australia as well. As he sat in front of his laptop

and watched news clips of the turmoil caused by his decision, the Indian cricket captain remembered

what his parents had said to him the day he was made the ODI captain: Do not buckle down. Dhoni

was determined not to bow in the face of intense media pressure. He remained confident of his decision.

To many cricket writers it seemed that in faraway Australia, a new Dhoni was born – a man of grit,

hope and vision for the Indian cricket team. He would not compromise nor buckle under pressure. In

his hands lay the future of the Blue Billion Express.

But the mayhem continued unabated, even taking political overtures. Members of the ruling CPM-led

Left Front – for reasons strange – called it a ‘great conspiracy’ against Bengal. The opposition wanted to

know what prompted the instant sacking of two legends of Indian cricket.

While the Indian media speculated and debated the issue endlessly, the Australian media remained

non-committal. Newspapers and television channels in Australia were not overtly concerned about the

changes in the Indian cricket team. Dhoni loved the no-nonsense style of the Aussie media and, in

private conversations, told Yuvraj and King that he was confident that the current controversy would die

a natural death.

During practice sessions, Dhoni remained strong and flatly refused to take Indian media’s intense

questioning on the exclusion of Dravid and Ganguly from India’s ODI side. He, however, did defend the

timing of the team announcement and pooh-poohed concerns that it came on the eve of the Adelaide

Test and had upset the harmony of the team. He said the announcement timing was out of logistical

concerns for players still in India. ‘If we had delayed the announcement of the team till the 29 [January]

they would have got the visa on the 30 and by then, the first ODI would already be over. Sometimes you

have to respect time and with the amount of cricket we play sometimes it’s a tough decision,’ explained

Dhoni, cool as a cucumber.

He also said the decision was based on logical and scientific grounds that had been already been

explained and added – he actually rubbed it in – that to him it seemed more of a media issue than

anything else. ‘I think it has affected the (Indian) journalists more than us,’ Dhoni laughed, adding:

‘We are back in the practice sessions, we trained in the morning without any hiccups, so it has not

affected us in any way. We have one more Test to go. Let’s wait six more days and as soon as we land in

Melbourne, we will answer questions about the one-day squad and the series.’

What was amazing was not just his resolve, but the fact that not a single reporter argued with him. It

seemed clear that he was a captain not just in total command of his team, but also with the ability to

handle a frenzied Indian media with total calm. His attitude was very clear: he would not take any

nonsense from anyone, be it the media or selectors.

The attitude of the Indian captain impressed many, among them was former Indian skipper Sunil

Gavaskar. Dhoni was probably the only cricketer in the national team who had never had a conversation

with the legendary opener. A reporter from Ranchi had once warned him that by ignoring the legend, he

was possibly antagonizing the veteran, then a batting consultant with the BCCI and also a

commentator for ESPN Star Sports. But Dhoni seemed unperturbed. ‘I honestly do not think I should

invade his privacy. Let him do his commentary and I am sure we will meet some day,’ he told the

reporter. This expression of supreme confidence was on display in Australia as well, especially after the

controversial decision just before the CB Series. Interestingly, he drew praise from none other than the

Little Master himself. In one of the commentary sessions, Gavaskar said he was happy to see Dhoni in

complete control of the side and ‘not giving in to the media onslaught’.

‘He must continue to carry his attitude inside, as well as, outside the field. In Indian cricket, silent

captains have died silent deaths,’ Gavaskar hinted subtly but clearly to the spectators as well as to the

current captain.

Expectedly, the protests died a slow death. While majority of cricket-crazy Indians realized that Dhoni

was perfectly justified in his decision and were in favour of it, there were others who continued to feel

that the departure of two of India’s classiest batsmen – both an absolute treat to watch when in full flow

– could have been handled better.

The decision impacted Ganguly a lot more than it did Dravid. A year after this incident, Ganguly –

probably still carrying the pain in his heart – deliberately avoided members of the Indian national team

when they were relaxing barely a mile away from the hotel in Mumbai’s Nariman Point where he had

come to attend a charity ball.

Dhoni felt sad when he was informed of Ganguly’s decision to avoid the national team. ‘I will not be

the one to cause him pain. I will make amends,’ he told his friend Pandey.

It happened in Nagpur in November 2009. Dhoni, on hearing that Ganguly had decided to retire

from Test cricket after the Test match against Australia was over, asked his former skipper to lead the

side for more than an hour. ‘Please sir, do it for me, the team, India, and for your fans,’ said Dhoni as he

walked up to his mentor and former skipper. Ganguly happily obliged. A relationship that had fractured

and turned acrimonious after that abrupt sacking in Australia, turned a happy corner, and had a happy

ending.

A mellowed Ganguly agreed this was a tactical masterstroke from Dhoni. ‘He knew what he was

doing, perhaps what he did was right,’ Ganguly told his friends, who had earlier criticized the Ranchi

boy for having the audacity to drop two former captains from the side without a whimper. In Ganguly’s

words, one thing was clear: Only when the head that wears the crown has the courage to take

unpalatable decisions – convinced they are correct – his leadership comes of age.

‘Do not forget he stayed with the decision. That is the ideal sign of a captain, a skipper. A captain is like

an actor, he knows his decision will help make the film, win the match,’ Ganguly told his friends.

6

Fireworks in the Desert

Very few in Jaipur would remember that the elegant Maharaja Sawai Man Singh – whose love for polo

and cricket was legendary – was known as SMS, among his friends. In fact, Man Singh would routinely

encourage his close associates and confidants to address him by that acronym.

The Maharaja of Jaipur loved polo and was instrumental in winning the World Cup Polo way back in

1933. While Polo was where his heart was, SMS eventually also developed an interest in and a soft

corner for cricket. He was aware of the game’s growing popularity both in India and England, where he

travelled to – along with representatives of other European nations – while he was the Indian

ambassador to Spain during the mid 1960s.

On being told by his friends that cricket in India – for a while now – was being patronized by the

erstwhile maharajas of the princely states of Patiala, Jamnagar, and Cooch Behar to name a few, the

Maharaja of Jaipur too began promoting the game with gusto in his home state.

Initially played in barren fields that had specially-laid pitches, the game in Jaipur eventually shifted to

a stadium that Man Singh built in the corner of the city’s Rambagh circle. Initially, it was among the

city’s important landmarks but slowly the stadium started losing its sheen as Jaipur failed to host big

cricket matches. Man Singh was extremely upset that the stadium – one he had built from his personal

funds – was not being promoted by cricket authorities but could do nothing about it. He was helpless,

sad and often vented his ire on some of the big organizers of cricket in India who routinely neglected

Jaipur. Then in 1970, Man Singh had a horrific accident while playing polo in Cirencester, England and

died the same day.

After Man Singh’s death, the Sawai Man Singh stadium got its usual quota of Ranji and Duleep

Trophy matches but – for reasons unknown – was kept out of the big cricket circuit (read Test, and later

one-day internationals). It still hosted some special matches where teams from across the world played

against the national selection but the aura that many associated with the venerated Eden Gardens of

Kolkata, or for that matter, Mumbai’s Wankhade Stadium, continued to elude the Sawai Man Singh

Stadium.

But eventually, things did begin to change for Jaipur and its only cricket stadium. Thanks to a

perceived neutrality of the grounds, the Indian cricket board decided to host a very special cricket match

there in 1987. It was an India versus Pakistan Test match made famous by the sudden arrival of the then

Pakistan president, General Zia-ul Haq, who hopped across the border to watch the second day’s play as

part of his Cricket for Peace initiative.

That, however, was the extent of breaking news for the stadium and its management, some belonging

to the erstwhile royal family. Nothing earth-shattering happened between the two traditional rivals as

the game sputtered to a tame draw after the third day’s play was washed out because of a torrential

downpour (a rarity for the capital of the desert state) and a seemingly unnecessary controversy over the

alleged deposit of sawdust on the wicket that the visitors objected to and suspected foul play from some

radical organization. The matter was, however, hushed up immediately by an alert administration. Zia’s

visit was, however, the silver lining of the match, appreciated by politicians from both countries.

The stadium, interestingly, had made its international debut with an India-Pakistan ODI in 1983-84;

it also hosted World Cup matches in 1987 and 1996. However, despite this, Jaipur’s cricket ground

continued to remain a backyard of Indian cricket and there were times when many felt the ground

could even lose its international status. Some even recommended that it be turned into a hockey or a

football field.

This did not seem to bother the mandarins of Indian cricket, except one man who hated the way the

big bosses of the game were neglecting his beloved home town. Lalit Modi, scion of the 15,000-crore

Modi empire, had studied abroad, occasionally smoked pot, dabbled in television, wanted to start a big

bucks football league in India. He wanted to play big, really big in everything he did. And in India, the

big game was undoubtedly cricket, felt Modi.

A top boss of the Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA), (he was elected president in 2005) Modi took

a step at a time, eventually taking over the total management and control of the dull, brick and mortar

cricketing edifice in the northwestern desert state. Slowly, yet steadily, he turned it into a very classy

stadium. He raised cash from the markets, sought some from the BCCI and silently started his work.

Not many took note, even journalists in the city believed that only broken chairs were being repaired at

the Sawai Man Singh Stadium. They did not care to enter the ground and see for themselves the work

that was underway. If they had bothered to make an effort, they would have seen what Modi called the

complete transformation of the stadium by 2006. Concrete seats got replaced with fiberglass bucket

seats, corporate boxes made things plush and comfortable for the high rollers of cricket sponsorship and

a spanking new specially-laid parking lot made access much easier for vast numbers of fans. And he

didn’t neglect the all-important pitch – Modi saw to it that the grass was completely re-laid, mostly with

imports from Kolkata. He even had two pitches airlifted from Kolkata and Mumbai to turn Sawai Man

Singh Stadium into a veritable Super Bowl. Now, the stadium looked as if it was ready to host the next

ICC World Cup Cricket.

‘My friends called it an oasis,’ laughed Modi, when reminded of his work to modernize the drab brick

and mortar structure. Modi had guts and gumption to dare to dream big. He had told his friends that

he wanted to make the stadium the classiest so that it could beat the competition – old favourite Eden

Gardens and ‘upstart’ Mohali – hands down. ‘This should be India’s showcase to the world,’ Modi told

his friends at a dinner hosted to celebrate the completion of the ground’s redesigning. The Sawai Man

Singh Stadium also holds a special place in the cricketing record books – there are two very peculiar

records associated with the grounds. The first is Sunil Gavaskar’s getting out on the first ball of a 1987

Test match (one of only three times in his career), as he was caught by an ever-alert Javed Miandad to a

terrific in-swinger from the fiery Imran Khan. And the second record set here is that of the highest ODI

score by a wicket-keeper, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who scored 183 not out on 31 October in 2005

against Sri Lanka to eclipse the record of his idol Adam Gilchrist (172 against Zimbabwe).

It was, arguably, Dhoni’s big bang moment. Over 55,000 fans were crammed inside the stadium, and

another 10,000 waited outside because they had no tickets and relied mostly on radio commentary and

occasional roars from within. Modi’s best mates – film stars, ad gurus, fashion designers, rebel writers,

maverick filmmakers, and other members of India’s glitterati club – had filled the corporate boxes,

adding a fair amount of glamour to the action on the pitch.

It was a humid day, a high-voltage night.

The fireworks started slowly, and eventually reached a finale as Dhoni blazed his way to a near double

century. Millions of television viewers across the nation exploded with joy as the Blue Billion Express

cruised to a comfortable six-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in the third ODI. ‘It was one of the best

innings I had ever seen. Dhoni played the best match of his life,’ remarked Harsha Bhogle, then an ESPN

commentator.

But the night had not been that easy for India. The start, on the contrary, had been rather

discouraging for the hosts. The visitors had piled on a huge total of 298 for four wickets, thanks to

wicketkeeper Kumar Sangakkara’s blistering, unbeaten knock of 138 off 147 balls, including 13

boundaries and two towering sixes. And this happened when Sri Lanka – after Captain Marvan

Atapattu won the toss for the first time in three matches and decided to bat – had lost its first wicket in

the sixth over when Ajit Agarkar’s classy, short-pitched delivery was edged inside by Sanath Jayasuriya

onto his stumps after the southpaw had scored just 15 runs.

In fact, Jayasuriya, nursing an elbow injury, had already survived a close chance in the third over off

Irfan Pathan when Murali Karthik, at mid-off, had failed to hold onto a rather difficult chance. But the

early loss of Jayasuriya did not affect the Sri Lankan run rate – the score had reached 51 for one after 10

overs – and Sangakkara slowly took charge.

A regular No. 3, Sangakkara was promoted to open the batting at Mohali (in the second ODI) in view

of Atapattu’s recent slump, and he made full use of the opportunity to play 50 overs.

That he was the in-form batsman was evident, as he stroked some magnificent drives off the fast

bowlers early on when the ball was hard and stroke play relatively easier, but the most impressive part of

Sanga’s innings was the manner in which the wicketkeeper kept his wits when the Sri Lankan innings

was apparently going nowhere. Atapattu huffed and puffed to a painful 17 off 49 balls but Sanga kept

his calm and eventually turned a competitive total into an imposing one. In terms of pacing a one-day

innings, this one was master class. He reached his half-century off 79 balls, with eight boundaries and

completed his fourth ODI century with a neatly flicked shot to square leg off Agarkar in the 42nd over.

The Indians knew they needed some rather good batting to beat this total. The host team – on a high

because of two previous wins – hoped for a good start, ostensibly because Master Blaster Sachin

Tendulkar had looked supreme in the series, scoring 160 runs in two previous matches and another

great innings was expected from him. Indian fans also looked to Virender Sehwag to continue his

blazing run riot with the mega hits that had become synonymous with the Delhi opener.

Passions ran high in the stadium as Sehwag got off to a flying start, hitting a boundary off the first ball

from left-arm pacer Chaminda Vaas. But the Sri Lankan pacer struck with the fifth ball of the over,

claiming the prized wicket of Tendulkar when he had scored just two runs. The Indian run machine

was dismissed by a brilliant diving catch by wicketkeeper Sangakkara after trying to slash at a wide, out-

swinging delivery from Vaas.

There was a sudden hush in the stadium as Mahendra Singh Dhoni walked out of the dressing room

into the ground. Almost instantly, the sardine-packed stadium gave him a thunderous welcome.

Interestingly, the Sri Lankans – who had earlier been stunned by Pathan’s sudden promotion to number

three in the Nagpur match – were wondering what had prompted Dhoni’s promotion this time. In fact,

the move caught them completely unawares. ‘Dhoni was promoted to number three after the early loss

of Tendulkar to take advantage of the fielding restrictions,’ remembers seasoned cricket writer Ayaz

Memon, adding: ‘What he eventually did that night to the Sri Lankans was just amazing. He virtually

clobbered them out of shape, out of the match.’

It seemed as if Dhoni wanted to send a message to none other than his counterpart Sangakarra. He

started in swashbuckling style, punishing the Sri Lankan bowlers by thumping three huge sixes on the

off-side, as the bowlers had drifted slightly wide of the stumps. Those three hits looked as if he was

giving enough indication of the way he’d decided to bat. India reached 75 for one after 10 overs and it

did seem that the assault by Sehwag (28 from 23 balls) and Dhoni (44 from 35 balls) had made up for

Tendulkar’s early dismissal.

But to those watching the game closely, Dhoni clearly seemed like a man in hurry. He wanted to finish

off everything before time. He raced to his half-century off 40 balls, with six boundaries and three sixes,

in the twelfth over. His third ODI half-century came in his customary attacking fashion as he lofted one

from Vaas straight back over the bowler’s head to the long-off fence. Vaas stood in stunned silence even

as the crowds went delirious with joy and chanted ‘Mahi, Mahi’.

The visitors really had no answer to the kind of firepower unleashed by the Indian wicketkeeper and

opted not to use the second Power Play after 10 overs, in order to try and frustrate the batsmen. They

had a feeling that if the pace was slowed down, the Indians would get rattled and aim for the big hit

and, eventually, get caught on the ropes.

It was, possibly, a sound cricketing calculation, but the Sri Lankans hadn’t reckoned with the fact that

this was Dhoni’s night. Dhoni and Sehwag played intelligently for a few overs before Muttiah

Muralitharan struck with one of his deadly deliveries. The wily spinner dismissed Sehwag, trapping him

leg before wicket as he tried to sweep the off-spinner. It was a classic doosra that had Sehwag all ends up,

as the ball pitched on leg stump and straightened a bit. The Delhi power-box, who had made 39 from

37 balls, had put on a quick-fire partnership of 92 for the second wicket with Dhoni.

The fall of Sehwag left Dhoni unfazed. It didn’t seem to stop his steam-rollering, as he continued his

attacking brand of cricket in the second Power Play, which Sri Lanka took in the 16th over. At that point,

India had scored 148 for 2 after 20 overs, with Dhoni unbeaten on 92 from 70 balls. The Jharkhand boy

reached his second one day international century in the 25th over, off just 84 balls, with 10 boundaries

and 5 sixes. India was 169 for two at the halfway mark in the innings.

For the record, Dhoni’s previous century had been an equally aggressive 148 off 123 balls against

Pakistan, which had helped India post a massive 356-9 win (by 58 runs) in April earlier that year.

The third Power Play was taken at the end of 27 overs. By then, the Sri Lankans had frustration

written all over their faces and were wondering what to do next because India was comfortably placed

on 185 for two with Dhoni batting well on 104. Luckily, Muralitharan brought some cheer to the

visitors, as he foxed Dravid with a flighted delivery: The Wall was caught and bowled for 28. The Indian

skipper had tried to turn the ball on the leg-side but was roundly beaten by a straighter one from the

spinner. The blade’s leading edge popped straight back to the bowler, who made no mistake.

India had reached 202 for 3 after 30 overs, but still needed another 97 runs at 4.85, a fairly

comfortable task, with Dhoni on 120. The Ranchi dynamo hit his seventh six in the 31st over when he

lofted a straight one off Tilakratne Dilshan, to equal Sourav Ganguly and Tendulkar’s record of most

sixes in an innings by an Indian batsman. Ganguly had hit seven sixes during his innings of 183 against

Sri Lanka at Taunton during the 1999 World Cup, while Tendulkar’s record number of sixes had come

against Australia at Kanpur in 1998. India had won both those matches. Naturally, Dhoni revelled in

his mega strokes. In fact, the match had to halt for as many as five times because it took some time for

the groundsmen to find the ball after Dhoni had sent it soaring into the galleries.

But the heat in Rajasthan was taking its toll on Dhoni, who was constantly troubled by cramps. In

fact, he’d already asked for mineral water ten times because he was getting severely dehydrated.

Eventually, he could not take the pressure any more and, justifiably, opted to play with a runner. He

raced to his 150 in just 124 balls in the 36th over. The cheering had reached a crescendo in the stadium

as the match was now firmly in India’s grasp. The hosts needed 51 runs in the last 14 overs, with seven

wickets in hand. In short, that meant a required run rate of three runs per over. No Sri Lankan bowler,

even the legendary Muralitharan and his doosra, was able to make any headway against the rampaging

Dhoni that night.

Meanwhile, India had a minor hiccup as it lost another wicket at the other end – Dilshan cleaned up

Yuvraj Singh for 18 as the left-hander played into a wrong line and let the delivery crash onto his

stumps. But nothing deterred Dhoni. With a runner in tow, it seemed as if he could play for another six

hours, if required. His eighth six came in the dying moments of the match when he crashed Chandana

over the covers in the 45th over to become the first Indian to hit eight sixes in a one-day international.

With his ninth six in the same over, he broke Adam Gilchrist’s record for the highest score by a

wicketkeeper in ODIs. He also went past Kapil Dev’s highest ODI score of 175. Interestingly, it was his

tenth six that finally sealed the match, as India won by six wickets and took a 3-0 lead in the series. Sri

Lankans agreed that they had needed a miracle to salvage something in the remaining matches and

stop the Indian juggernaut, especially Dhoni.

Interestingly, when Dhoni had cracked his first ODI century, he had Virender Sehwag for company.

The two – after the departure of Tendulkar for two runs – had shared a 96 run partnership. And when

Sehwag left after playing second fiddle to Dhoni’s looming presence in the field, skipper Dravid came

along and did the perfect supporting act.

In many ways, the boy from Ranchi was the difference between India and Sri Lanka in Jaipur, helping

the home side clinch a 3-0 lead in the seven-match series with 23 balls to spare. His blistering onslaught

completely shadowed the night’s other superlative performance – that by Kumar Sangakkara, who held

Sri Lanka’s batting together in a superbly paced 138.

In the first game of the series, the BCCI think-tank had preferred Irfan Pathan for the number three slot

but in Jaipur, skipper Rahul Dravid chose his wicketkeeper for one simple reason: the Ranchi hitter was

seen as a person who could take the pressure and sheen off Vaas and Muralitharan. No one knows the

inside stories of the Indian dressing room but it is rumoured that Dravid personally pushed for Dhoni

and made a request on that very day before the team left for the stadium and the wicketkeeper happily

agreed to be the game changer. The move, eventually, turned out to be quite an inspired one and helped

India get a firm grip on the series.

Dravid and fitness coach Gergory King – in fact – had had a detailed look at the pitch the day before

and found it lacking in both pace and bounce. It was immediately after the nets that the skipper and the

coach pushed Dhoni for the new slot, confident the hard-hitting batsman would do a better job than

Pathan.

The mission was simple: the batsman should hit the ball on the rise, follow through the line of the

delivery, and advance down the pitch to hit the ball for a big one when the ball isn’t pitched up. Dhoni

listened carefully, often taking random notes and munching baked baby corn.

He took care of the new-ball threat that Chaminda Vaas posed, twice smashing the pacer over extra-

cover for six, and when Atapattu held back the second Powerplay to push in Muralitharan in the 11th

over, Dhoni slowed down his pace, showing the Lankans that he could easily combine brain with

brawn.

The singles – Dhoni always found the gaps – kept the Indian scorecard moving. He actually was

waiting for the Powerplays to happen again so that he could launch his blistering hits all over the

grounds. There were times when he limped constantly because of cramps and scored his last 53 runs

with the help of a runner. Time and again, he would walk up to a visibly jittery and nervous Venugopal

Rao and encourage him with a few pats on the back so that he stayed at the crease and offered the

support Dhoni badly needed.

Dhoni was caught just once in the course of his 145-ball decimation, but that was by a ball boy

standing well behind the boundary ropes. Aside from that his innings was chanceless, an achievement

for someone who stayed on for 45.2 overs.

Dhoni’s masterpiece was the talk of the night. ‘Whatever Sri Lanka’s leather flingers did, the 24-year-

old produced strokes that seared the air, scorched the turf and peppered all sorts of paraphernalia

dotting the boundary,’ wrote a reporter on a cricket website about Sangakkara’s misfortune and Dhoni’s

power play.

An ecstatic Modi, then president of the RCA, was overjoyed with the result and announced 1 million

cash prize for Dhoni.

‘He played an innings when chasing, which requires both talent and temperament. He had nerves of

steel,’ said Modi of the night. Modi should know. It’s always difficult to chase a target of close to 300,

scoring at a run-a-ball in 50 overs. ‘He was ready for the show even in the dressing room. And when he

went out, to me it seemed he was gripped by some supernatural power. He never lost control, never lost

concentration of the match,’ said Modi.

Agreed skipper Dravid when he said, ‘Words can’t describe what a great innings it was. It was a

privilege to watch an innings like that.’

Significantly, Dravid compared it to Sachin Tendulkar’s 143 against Australia in Sharjah in 1998, one

of the most stirring innings played by an Indian in one-dayers. ‘Anyone who watched it at the ground

and on television will agree that it is one of the great one-day innings of all time,’ he said of Dhoni’s

knock.

‘Significantly, he kept wickets for 50 overs and batted for 46 overs. His 120 runs came off boundaries.

And I had a feeling that he could have easily become the world’s first batsman to score a double-

hundred in limited-overs cricket.’

Was that on Dhoni’s mind?

Well, not exactly. ‘The main thing was that I wanted to be there till the end,’ he said. ‘I wanted to be

able to score the winning runs. It was when I reached 160 that I thought of Gilchrist’s record of 172. We

were wary of Muralitharan, he is the world’s best spinner, and Rahul and I decided to take singles

against him, see him off and attack the other bowlers.’ And how he attacked.

Rival skipper Kumar Sangakkara, was ideally placed – both literally and figuratively – to get a grip on

just how good Dhoni’s knock was. ‘There’s not much to say about it, or describe,’ he said. ‘You won’t see

an innings like that again in a long, long time. It was one such night.’

Sangakkara said Dhoni simply did not care who was bowling to him, or whether the ball pitched

short or swung awkwardly. Like Sehwag’s no-nonsense policy, Dhoni followed a rustic principle: see the

ball, not the bowler. And just hit, hit and hit.

Inside the dressing room, Yuvraj, Sehwag, and Harbhajan Singh broke into an impromptu bhangrawith a borrowed tape recorder that played the immensely popular That’s the Way, Mahi Ve, from Karan

Johar’s blockbuster, Kal Ho Na Ho.

Minutes later, Dhoni walked out of the dressing room and called his home in Ranchi and spoke to his

parents. No one heard the conversation, except these words: ‘Ab to khush ho? (Hope you are happy

now?)’ Was it his mother on the other side or his father? Dhoni never answered this one; he merely

smiled enigmatically every time he was asked. Some things a cricketer never tells.

At the temple of Deori Mata, a young priest perhaps knew the answer. Basudev Chakraborty, 26, had

had a special request from Paan Singh. He performed a special puja in the night of the match. In the

precincts of the temple, Chakraborty had only candles for company while he prayed till the match was

over. Knowing his interest in the match, his colleagues would slip hand written notes to him so that he

would know the score. He asked another priest to bundle all the notes in a red gamcha (cotton towel).

Chakraborty never touched the notes. He briskly walked away after the prayers, only to be chased by

his fellow priests. Panting, they caught up with Chakraborty near the exit.

He raised his arms, urging them not to tell him the result. ‘Ma ka ashirwaad tha, Mahi neh match jitayahain. Khabar kal par lenge (The blessings of the goddess was there, Dhoni helped win the match. Will

read details in the papers tomorrow).’

And then Chakraborty walked away, leaving his stunned colleagues in the company of fireflies in the

darkness of the temple courtyard.

7

A Phenomenon Called Dhoni

On 15 July 2013, BCCI’s interim president Jagmohan Dalmiya told pesky reporters at his office in

Kolkata that nothing will be ‘swept under the carpet’ regarding Indian cricket skipper Mahendra Singh

Dhoni’s alleged conflict of interest following reports of his having a stake in a sports management firm

that also handles several other Indian cricketers.

The Indian skipper had courted controversy on the grounds that he held 15 per cent stake in Rhiti

Sports Management, which manages cricketers Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, and Pragyan Ojha,

besides the Indian skipper.

The company on the other hand claimed that Dhoni held the shares for a brief while, and those were

transferred back to the company in April 2013 after payments to the India captain were cleared.

‘We believe we should not be after any player. If someone has a stake in a sports management

company, we will not be after him, but will try to correct the mistakes,’ said Dalmiya making it clear that

the BCCI was not keen to cause any discomfort to Dhoni. Dalmiya seemed to hint that as long as N.

Srinivasan runs the BCCI, Brand Dhoni will remain untouched, especially after the Indian captain had

cleared the air about share transfer. In short, nothing would happen to Brand Dhoni because of the

captain’s proximity to the czar of Indian cricket.

Interestingly, very few took note of the fact that this incident involving Dhoni – which the BCCI top

brass guarded with double zeal – had taken place almost a decade after Indian advertisers were

struggling hard to sell Dhoni as an brand ambassador. Everyone, ranging from FMCG brands, white

goods giants, and automobile companies, asked one simple question at the time: who is this cricketer?

It was in early 2004, inside the well-protected offices of Dentsu India in South Delhi’s upscale

Chattarpur neighbourhood, that two geniuses were working towards creating their respective teams

which they hoped would shape the Indian chapter of one of the world’s fastest growing advertising

agencies.

One was them was the portly Sandeep ‘Poli’ Goyal – the affable country head of Dentsu India who

could read the minds of his clients and the pulse of the market like the palm of his hand. He had

previously worked with some of India’s finest advertising agencies, right from JWT (then Hindustan

Thomson Associates) to Rediffusion DYR and had been the CEO of Zee Telefilms before forging

partnership with Dentsu to start their India operations.

The other genius at play was Sabyasachi ‘Gullu’ Sen, the firm’s highly talented creative head. Sen had

been Goyal’s trusted partner for several years at HTA and Rediffusion and was considered a die-hard

Goyal loyalist. The two led the agency’s India operations in style, picking up a host of Japanese and

Indian clients.

Understanding a client’s mind is always a tough proposition for any agency. Goyal’s favoured method

of gauging the same was his famous Celesta study that helped advertising agencies understand the

corporate mind. He deployed the study to help his team understand the brand and its core demand.

Repeatedly, Goyal and his men would use the Celesta study to help their clients understand the

dynamics of the Indian market and arrive at their desired positioning that would give them an

advantage vis-à-vis other brands.

One such brand was Yamaha Motor, the Japanese auto major that was trying to make its presence felt

in the cluttered Indian motorbike market. Another Japanese auto major, Honda, already ruled the roost

with a near 51 per cent share of the two-wheeler market, thanks to a strategic tie-up with the Hero group

of Munjals.

The Yamaha Motor account was worth 20 crore and the broad brief to the agency was to successfully

launch the company’s new corporate as well as product campaigns in India.

Ruchira Raina, Executive Director of Dentsu Communications, was in charge of the account and

responsible for pushing the Japanese auto major’s agenda in the growing markets of South Asia. It was

one of Raina’s toughest challenges. It was not going to be easy to plug Yamaha in face of Honda’s market

dominance.

One of the first tasks for Raina, Goyal and Gullu was to find a brand ambassador; a refreshing face

that could have an instant connect with the masses. And it was going to be a Herculean task. Goyal

called it the Aithey Devil, Oothey Blue syndrome of Indian advertising, meaning that seasoned actors

were often discarded by advertising agencies because of their high price and at times their overexposure,

however, at the same time clients remain wary about fresh faces, wondering whether they will be able to

shoulder the burden of launching a new brand. All this while the client wants to remain within defined

budgets. It was, for Goyal, akin to wanting the moon and not wanting to pay for it. Caught in between

are advertising agencies that just have to deliver what the client wants.

Some brave agencies suggest new actors, some suggest sports people but the final call always becomes

difficult as the client remains unsure about what will happen to his brand if endorsed by a ‘fresher’?

Goyal and Gullu too considered filmstars but before picking up the Bollywood star availability list,

they thought of suggesting a cricketer to Yamaha Motor team.

It was 2005, the time when India was on a path of glory with a youthful team led by the mercurial

Saurav Ganguly, who had already attained fame for a great victory over England and became a poster

boy of Indian cricket after he took off his shirt from the balcony of the historic Lord’s cricket ground as

India beat England in the finals of the Natwest series. For Indian cricket, it was one of those defining

moments that could be compared with Kapil’s 1983 World Cup win, Ravi Shastri’s winning the

Champion of Champions title Down Under and Dhoni’s two World Cup wins. Ganguly had also led

India to the finals of the ICC World Cricket Cup in faraway South Africa. That India lost the one-sided

finals to a better-placed Australia did nothing to dampen the game’s growing craze in the subcontinent.

India then had a successful tour Down Under which ESPN Star Sports cleverly labeled Indian cricket’s

ashwamedha yatra under Ganguly. They thus linked the Bengal southpaw to the white stallion that

ancient Indian kings would follow in the quest to conquer new lands and further expand their empire.

This was also the time when Mahendra Singh Dhoni – with his flowing hair and high voltage cricket

– was making his mark on the international cricket scene. While he was still slightly on the margins,

with Rahul Dravid keeping wickets for the Tests and two tough opponents in Parthiv Patel and Dinesh

Karthik, those who were following Dhoni were confident of his potential for superlative success.

News had circulated that Dentsu was looking for a star to be brand ambassador for Yamaha Motor

and a number of celebrity managers started visiting the Dentsu offices. Among the callers was

Gameplan India, a Kolkata-based company owned by Malabika and Jeet Banerjee, which was

responsible for marketing Dhoni. Then just an emerging talent, Dhoni’s rates were very low when

compared with those charged by the legends of Indian cricket or superstars of Bollywood. The cricketer

was offered to Yamaha Motor for just 20 lakhs for two years.

‘It was a good buy for a two year period and we were over the moon,’ remembers Goyal. The cricketer,

his photos and credentials were offered to the Yamaha India top brass. But, unfortunately, it did not cut

much ice with the Japanese team. Who is he? was their first response. Is he a footballer? If yes, what’s his

club and what is the club’s rank in Asia and the world. What is India’s rank? Both Goyal and Gullu were

flabbergasted with the rapid-fire questioning from the Yamaha team.

Multiple meetings were planned with the cricketer to convince the Japanese bike giant. They were told

that Dhoni is one of the finest, that he will be the next wicketkeeper of the side and, eventually, the

captain. All potions were stirred. It still did nothing to convince the client. Equally worried was Jeet who

wanted a break with a top, global brand for his client and constantly badgered Goyal with his phone

calls. Stationed in Kolkata, Jeet was far from the action in Delhi and would panic every now and then.

Goyal started crunching the numbers while Raina and Gullu did another round of hard selling the

man who would one day be the Indian cricket captain. The Yamaha bosses were still not convinced.

However, they did give an impression that if the price was right, they might look at a bargain with the

young cricketer.

‘I asked Jeet how much he was ready to offer,’ says Goyal. The rate was halved instantly, and then it

was further brought down to a low of 3 lakh for a year. Jeet said it was his final call. Still, the Japanese

bike manufacturers didn’t bite the bullet. They wanted a star with an acceptance level of that of

international football star Wayne Rooney; someone fresh faced but blazing glory for his team with a

growing fan following across the world.

Goyal explained to his client that cricket was only played in a handful of nations across the world and

that in India the game was like a religion with cricketers literally being treated like deities by millions of

fans across the country. They were told that if they were looking for an alternate to Rooney, then in India

they could only get Bollywood stars and just a handful of top cricketers. Who are they, asked the client.

Goyal told them about Sachin Tendulkar. But his rates were astronomical and he was already

endorsing a bike brand. There were others, Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, and Yuvraj Singh.

However, they were expensive too as they all had hiked their rates after the 2003 ICC World Cup.

Dhoni is your best bet, Goyal told them. Raina and Goyal made one last pitch, explaining the virtues

of this earthy, ambitious cricketer who lived in a small town and yet, was shaping up to be a superhero.

Nothing worked with the Yamaha bosses. Dhoni was rejected despite hours of hard sell. The agency was

asked to find another star. ‘It was a bad miss for Yamaha,’ says Goyal.

In 2009, the same star – now the Indian cricket captain – returned to Dentsu because of his

association with Chennai Super Kings and Aircel. This time, the rates were astronomically high. But

Yamaha happily paid the cash. After all, they had the Indian cricket captain endorsing their brand.

‘We handled him with utmost caution [this time], often remembering what would have happened if

we had signed him up some years ago and shaped his image,’ says Gullu.

Dhoni who was now being handled by Rhiti Sports, a company he once part-owned – was aware of

the Yamaha miss. He seemed cool about the miss and continued shooting without any attitude. To

Gullu and his creative team it seemed that Dhoni wanted to live a life minus frills and fancies. The

Dentsu team would often shoot in Mumbai where Dhoni would stay back late for hours, often missing

parties of film stars. Gullu would often ask Dhoni about his family and life’s biggest ambition. Dhoni’s

standard reply was: ‘Sirf World Cup jeetna hai.’

What was different about Dhoni was that he would always ask after the junior-most staff on the sets.

Whenever he had the time, Dhoni would ask the floor manager to call some of the unit boys so that he

could talk to them. He would often ask the boys about their earnings, how much money they sent home

and what would they eventually want to become when they grew up.

‘He never threw any tantrums, hardly showed his star value and shot with us for almost five to six

hours without batting an eyelid,’ says Gullu.

‘What impressed me most was that – between shoots – he would always enquire whether the spot

boys and errand boys had food. Once, he skipped a big John Abraham party that was thrown just for

him. “I cannot make it. The shoot is on and unless I finish work and pack up, no one can leave the sets. I

have promised the kids that I will eat a meal with them tonight. Let me do it,” Dhoni told the film star.

And then, he quietly returned to his shoot,’ recalls Gullu.

Once a magazine wrote how Dhoni, who never opts for business class while travelling for IPL matches,

told a guard at a Chennai hotel that he need not stay outside his room because he would be hitting the

bed soon. The guard smiled and left instantly.

‘I have seen it in him, he cares, he always cares,’ says Gullu.

‘He is one of the most interesting characters of Indian advertising,’ says R. Balki (Balakrishnan) of

Lowe India. Balki, a veteran in the Indian advertising world, should know. Those who had predicted

doomsday for Brand Dhoni because of the 2007 Caribbean ICC World Cup fiasco and criticized the

Indian skipper for once missing the Padma Bhushan award ceremony because of a prior engagement,

were forced to eat their words. The boy from Ranchi was named the world’s most expensive cricketer by

Forbes magazine in 2009. The magazine cited the 56 crore kitty he earned by endorsing 11 brands –

both national and international – during 2008-09 for its assessment. The following year, in 2010, India’s

highest-selling financial daily, the Economic Times, dubbed Dhoni the Chief Executive Officer of the Men

in Blue. It said that if, for hypothetical reasons, the Indian cricket team is considered a corporate entity,

there’s little doubt that Dhoni is the man with the corner office. The paper then proceeded, not only to

calculate Dhoni’s annual compensation package, but also compared it to Reliance Industries’ supremo

Mukesh Ambani – India’s richest man.

However, just placing Dhoni in such exalted company wasn’t enough – the newspaper calculated that

Dhoni had overtaken Ambani in terms of per hour earnings. It calculated that Dhoni was actually paid

a higher per hourly rate than Ambani Sr. for the duration of the first edition of the IPL. At 6 crore for the

tournament, spread over 44 days, Dhoni would earn 56,818 per hour. ‘This discounts actual time that

Dhoni would spend on the field for Chennai, which would peg the actual per hour figure much higher.

Against this, Mukesh Ambani, who had drawn 30.46 crore in the last financial year as salary, perks, and

commission from Reliance Industries, would have earned 34,771 per hour,’ said the daily. It seemed

that Brand Dhoni had arrived on the world stage.

The paper then went on to compare their other earnings as well. They placed Mukesh Ambani’s

dividend income as Reliance promoter alongside Dhoni’s earnings from playing for the country and his

brand endorsements. When Dhoni’s friends showed him a clipping of the report, the India captain was

very upset. ‘Do not joke with me. His (Mukesh Ambani) is an industry employing over 60,000 people. I

am just a cricketer,’ he is believed to have said.

Balki likens him to Amitabh Bachchan of the ’70s – raw, fresh and ready to learn, yet making a

statement of his own. If given a chance, the bearded filmmaker would be only too happy to cast him in

his next movie (his maiden directorial venture being the Amitabh Bachchan-Tabu starring Cheeni Kum).

‘I would love to have him as the hero of Cheeni Kum 2,’ adds Balki, enjoying every moment of Dhoni’s

innocence.

Whether that happens or not, the Ranchi lad has now emerged as the hottest property among

celebrities, piping to the post the likes of Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai and even the Big B himself, to

become the most wanted brand ambassador. Even Master Blaster Tendulkar clocked in behind the

swashbuckling captain in recent rankings.

In 2012, the celebrity rankings were arrived at in a survey conducted jointly by Percept Talent

Management and Hansa Research. The survey evaluated celebrities from films, sports, business, social

work, and politics on parameters such as persuasive power, looks, image attributes, popularity, and

media.

The celebrities considered for the list, which is intended to help brands decide on the most

appropriate star to sell their products, included actors, general sports persons and people from the music

industry. ‘The results enable clients and talents to study the changes with earlier data and then combine

the results for an even more robust and long-term understanding of changing public perceptions,’ says

Hansa Research’s MD, Ashok Das.

How has Dhoni achieved this apex of popularity? Ad guru Piyush Pandey, himself an avid cricketer

who represented Rajasthan in Ranji Trophy, says it’s ‘because of his innocent, million-dollar smile and

no-nonsense attitude.’ No other Indian cricketer has what Dhoni has. He has a freshness that resonates

easily with clients. Sachin Tendulkar, Pandey claims, can look reasonably cute but, barring one or two

ads, he’s barely smiled and his voice delivery has always been less than perfect. Saurav Ganguly grinned

with immense difficulty, which made life quite hard for his brand manager. As for Rahul ‘The Wall’

Dravid, his very moniker came from his composure, both on and off the crease, which didn’t augur well

for his ability to smile on cue for the camera. Anil Kumble, the epitome of the serious captain, was

always seen gravely considering the next step rather than beaming at his teammates. Smiling was not

associated with top cricketers – until Dhoni lit up television screens with his quick, spontaneous and

bright smile.

Interestingly, Balki is not the lone ranger to espouse the cause of the Indian cricket captain – who is

currently said to be worth a staggering 350 crore rupees, a conservative estimate say some – in the

advertising world. ‘He symbolizes the perfect Indian,’ says Pandey, creative head of Ogilvy & Mather

India. ‘A small-town boy who made it big through hard work – it’s the dream of every middle-class

family in India,’ he adds.

It would seem that the attention mega-load seems to be piggybacking not on Dhoni’s star quality, but

his straightforward ordinariness. His easy-going, laid-back, boy-next-door image seems to be the key to

his appeal with a huge cross-section of viewers. Future Brands boss Santosh Desai sees Dhoni

embodying the values of an emergent India. ‘He represents more than the son of the soil tag that Kapil

Dev carried for years,’ he says.

Desai – considered among the finest Indian analysts of brands – says he’d be very surprised if Dhoni

wasn’t so popular. ‘He is good-looking, aggressive without being hysterical, unflappable. He is successful

as the captain of the Indian cricket team. He’s the kind of captain Indians have always wanted,’ he says.

If one wants to really track the popularity chart of endorsements by cricketers and the kind of price

tags they have commanded, one needs to look no further than the historic Boost advertisement. It has

worked almost like a barometer of who is the contemporary favourite cricketer in the world of advertising

– and the price he commands.

In 1986, Boost paid legendary all-rounder Kapil Dev 1.75 lakh to say: ‘Boost is the secret of my

energy.’ Little less than a decade later, Dev was replaced by another legend, Sachin Tendulkar who was

paid 5 crore to say the exact same line.

In March 2008, Boost signed on Dhoni. ‘There is no doubt that after Sachin, Dhoni is the next big

cricketing name in the advertising world. He is cool and calm under immense pressure, and a very stable

guy. His small-town background is an added factor,’ says veteran ad filmmaker Prahlad Kakkar.

Manish Porwal, CEO of Percept Talent Management agrees with Kakkar. Dhoni, to Porwal, is a self-

made guy from a small town, which is a great asset to have in this country, which supports the underdog

much more than the powerful. Plus, Dhoni is a multi-faceted talent with increased popularity and

image all over the country. ‘He has the benefit of leading a fairly successful team, better than in the past,’

he adds.

But is there anything miraculous about Brand Dhoni? ‘No, really, he is never seen as a miracle as

Tendulkar was. Rather he is durable and real, which make him a favourite,’ says Prabhat Sinha, who was

associated with Boost’s campaign with Kapil Dev and is now a marketing consultant.

For example, telecom giant Aircel hired Dhoni for its ‘Save the Tiger’ campaign because, he embodied

the values that the brand wanted to project – simple, creative, trustworthy, and appealing to a wide

range of people. Everybody, from a child to a grandfather, likes him.

At present with 19 brands and a number of special-appearance deals under his belt, it is believed that

Dhoni charges close to 5 crore for every brand he endorses, and each deal typically runs for three years.

That computes in at a cool 95 crore a year. While some deals are committed for three years, there are

others such as Pepsi and Reebok which are reportedly for ten years each. In fact, Pepsi and Reebok deals

with Dhoni are said to be worth close to 100 crores.

In addition to the endorsements, Reebok is launching a Dhoni line, from which he will receive

royalties. ‘Also, brands wanting him to stay away from rivals or allied categories by use of an exclusivity

clause typically have to pay him more,’ points out Balki.

When brands enter into a deal with a sportsperson, performance-based incentives are built into the

contract. So in case of Brand Dhoni, incentives based on scoring a ton or crossing a milestone would be

in addition to the base price of the contract. This base price remains intact if he is injured and cannot

play. In the event of him getting dropped or losing his captaincy, marketers say it is only the

performance-based incentives that get impacted; the contract remains intact.

In 2013, Forbes put Dhoni at 15, a high from 2012’s 31 ranking, in its list of the richest sportspersons,

ahead of Usain Bolt, Novak Djokovic, and Wayne Rooney. Of the $26.5 million he earned, $23 million

came from endorsements, nearly 40 per cent more than what Sachin Tendulkar got from plugging

brands and products.

But most interesting part about Brand Dhoni is not that it is pan-India, and that the advertisers are

queuing up outside his door, but the fact that till date, Dhoni is the first and the only Indian cricketer to

have his own endorsement company, a company that was created after he split with Gameplan, the

company that first represented him. Not many know what triggered the split, but it is rumored that

Dhoni was distinctly uncomfortable with the agent-commission syndrome that dominates world

cricket. ‘If I have to earn, I must earn it directly,’ he told Banerjee’s employee, Judhajit Banerjee, before the

two decided to set up Mindscape Maestros together.

While not every cricketer in the Blue Billion Express signed up with Dhoni’s own agency, Mindscape

Maestros still had a fair crop of the current players. In fact, it had also signed Bollywood actor John

Abraham.

With Dhoni in company, Judhajit Banerjee started planning mega events: he organized Kolkata’s

biggest fashion show in April 2013 and some time ago, formed another company, Purple People, with

Pranay Dhelia, a Kolkata-based young businessman and classmate of Abhishek Dalmiya, son of former

ICC chairman and Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) president Jagmohan Dalmiya. The plan was to

pick up the fresh talent like Ravendra Jadeja, a member of the Indian T20 team; Cheteswar Pujara, the

highest scorer in Ranji Trophy in 2008; and Tamil Nadu’s Murali Vijay, who had already played two

Tests in 2008 against the visiting Australian team in the absence of a suspended Gautam Gambhir.

But that honeymoon did not last long as internal differences led to a split between Judhajit and

Dhoni.

And then, with the trademark speed that he scores his runs and wins matches, Dhoni signed on 12

July 2010, a 200-crore endorsement and talent management deal that took him past the legendary

Tendulkar in the corporate contract sweepstakes. In 2006, Tendulkar had signed a 3-year deal for 180

crore with sports management firm Iconix, making him the richest cricketer then.

In 2010, Dhoni, arguably India’s most expensive sportsman, snapped up a three-year deal with sports

and talent management firms Rhiti Sports Management and Mindscapes One which would, through a

joint venture, manage Dhoni’s long list of endorsements and brand associations, corporate profile,

patents and digital rights, images, visibility on social networking sites and merchandise.

Rhiti Sports is headed by Arun Pandey, a confidante and business associate of Dhoni, while

Mindscapes One is owned by Pratik Sen, who had been managing the cricketer’s endorsements for more

than a year. Pandey formed his company in 2007 and named it after one of the several forms of goddess

Durga, the presiding deity at the Deori Mata near Ranchi.

Dhoni’s stock rose ever since Rhiti began managing him. The World Cup win the following year gave

his image the ‘best possible’ boost, says Pandey. Before Dhoni signed with Rhiti, he used to get 2.5 crore

to 3 crore per brand. Once the deal was on, he started getting more than three times the figure ( 10-12

crore). Now compare this one with the 1995 deal Mark Mascarenhas of WorldTel signed with Sachin

Tendulkar and offered the Master Blaster $7.5 million for a period of five years. Till Mascarenhas struck

the deal with Tendulkar, Indian cricket had not heard of image building. There was the odd-man Salim

Durrani promoting Brylcreem and Sunil Gavaskar appearing for Digjam suitings and Thums Up

advertisements. Kapil Dev’s brand stock went up after the 1983 World Cup win, he got into endorsing

shoes, cycles, and Palmolive shaving cream for decent cash. But in Dhoni’s case, it was different. Dhoni,

who won the inaugural T20 World Cup, and then the 2011 big cup, instantly walked into a world of

untold riches.

Some argue that there was a time when Mumbai-based Percept Holdings and Sports Management

soared high because it had Sourav Ganguly, the captain of the cricket team (2000 to 2005) but then it

was Ganguly himself who messed his image with a series of controversies, the lowest point being his

slugfest with coach Greg Chappell.

‘He did not look into the future, Dhoni did,’ says Goyal.

Goyal remembers one of Dhoni’s early moves to build his own brand. Dhoni struck a deal with NDTV

for exclusive interviews, views, and special shows and succeeded in style. A couple of years later, as India

won the T20 World Cup, Dhoni was the toast of India. His open bus parade brought the country’s

financial capital to a standstill. Next day, the newspapers called him Captain Cool.

Everyone is loving the Indian cricket captain. Consider this one from Vinod K. Dasari, MD of

Chennai-based bus and truck maker Ashok Leyland, which for the first time hired a brand ambassador

in as many as 60 years. And the choice? It had to be Dhoni, says Dasari of a man he feels is an ideal son

of the soil.

Apart from Dhoni, Rhiti Sports manages cricketers R.P. Singh and Harbhajan Singh as well. In 2012,

they signed Saina Nehwal for a whopping 40 crore, the best ever offered to an Indian shuttler.

At least nine talent management firms such as IMG, Percept Group, Sunil Gavaskar-promoted PMG,

World Sport Group, Purple People, and Planman Consulting had vied with each other to sign Dhoni,

as typically an agency gets a fee of up to 30 per cent of the total endorsement charges of a celebrity it

manages.

In Dhoni’s case, he himself works with the team to pick his brands. Those close to him claim that

Dhoni is increasingly becoming very picky about the brands he endorses. Bobby Agarwal, COO, Godrej

Hershey, says he was immensely surprised when he interacted with the man himself. Dhoni made it

clear that he was realizing, the hard way, that he was stretching his brand image and had been advised

by his friends to become choosy about the brands he partners. ‘I valued his sentiments because I realized

he, unlike other celebrities, was not in a great hurry. He was like the Aamir Khan of Indian cricket: arrival

with a bang, a number of hits and now only classy films. I told him he was on the right track and that it

would serve him well in the long run,’ says Agarwal, who by then knew that he had picked the best

choice for his brand.

Does he still remember Dhoni’s exact words? Agarwal says he was so impressed by what Dhoni had

said that he took the lines from the notes his team had taken during the meeting. Dhoni had said: ‘I feel

I am a person for the masses. I see how honest is the company who wants to sign me.’

CelebZ, a study by GroupM, had once ranked Dhoni fourth after Tendulkar, Dravid, and Sehwag

amongst cricketers. But now, the Ranchi trailblazer has been numero uno for almost a year. Says

Mindshare Insights’ national director Sanchayeeta Bhattacharya: ‘I think the transformation has

happened with Dhoni. Taking over the captaincy has already added a totally new dimension to the life

and times of this handsome, flashy cricketer.’

Percept Holdings joint MD Shailendra Singh predicts a hundred per cent jump for the India cricket

captain: ‘Mark my words. He will see his endorsement rates double, treble and go through the roof. He is

one of those rare, rarest cricketers who will perform under pressure and remain a favourite among

marketers.’

Singh finds instant support from two other marketers. Says Videocon International joint president

Sunil Mehta: ‘We selected Dhoni because of his performance and the popularity he had gained. We are

confident that he will emerge as a great team player besides being the skipper.’ Reebok India MD

Subinder Singh Prem agrees: ‘This is a great investment. Our campaigns are personality-oriented and

Dhoni will create a great space, a special space.’

Does this mean Dhoni has matured? The Indian cricket captain understands his uniqueness and that

it is not easily substitutable. Hence, he wants to sign on big brands only, develop his own style, look and

feel. ‘A cricketer has to be aware of his brand image and develop it maturely and concisely. In my initial

days, I would not care too much about such issues but with passing time, I have – finally – come to

realize that it is important that one gets associated with brands that reflect one’s stature in the game,’

says Dhoni.

Desai, who had advised retail magnate Kishore (Pantaloons) Biyani to select none other than Dhoni

when the group wanted an icon who would push more crowds through the gates of Big Bazaar. ‘It had

to be Dhoni because he gives you an earthy, honest feeling. In fact, there is not a single other cricketer in

India who exudes such an earthy feeling and looks,’ adds Desai.

And then, he explained the logic through the campaign Mudra fashioned for the Ranchi lad. As the

Big Bazaar ambassador, Dhoni exhorts India’s youthful masses, Desh badlo, bhesh badlo (To change the

country, change the way you look). The advertising campaign was launched to coincide with the IPL

Twenty20, and the four commercials were crude in their simplicity: how you look is who you are. Bobby

Pawar, chief creative officer, Mudra Communications, the agency that created the ads, has a great

explanation: ‘There are no positives in life to dressing badly – unless you are a saint. As a result, it

doesn’t matter if the ads end up celebrating class prejudice and discrimination at its most offensive. I

would say it offers a statement that is in sync with the masses of the nation.’

The message? To earn respect, or to have any standing you must look smart and be well turned out –

otherwise, in a superficial world, you could be mistaken for a thief just because you are scruffily dressed.

That’s the mistake the girl in the ad makes – after Dhoni is smartened up, she thinks the mistake is hers;

earlier, she thought he’d stolen her mobile. Other scenarios make the same point. The ads are all about

aspiration dressing, and Dhoni perfectly represents the aspirations of middle-class India.

Interestingly, brand managers say the Dhoni phenomenon has a strong linguistic element that is often

overlooked: ‘People have got the Dhoni phenomenon wrong. I don’t think his provincial background is

the reason for his popularity. Even Sehwag and Yuvraj have a similar background. What makes him

different is his accented angrezi. He has moved from his provincial image to a more metropolitan

outlook, which makes him attractive to the middle class, who speak English or have the aspiration to

speak English,’ says Desai.

That may indeed be what makes the nation’s new mascot sell everything, from cement, to pens, to

phones, bikes, soft drinks and potato chips. Ranchi’s wonder boy is today India’s wonder man, letting

that quirky, almost awkward smile propel viewers towards the products he endorses.

Dhoni has overtaken every other national celebrity, from Bollywood stars to other sportspeople.

Whoever they are, and whatever their level of star power, Dhoni has hit them for of those out-of-the

stadium boundaries in his trademark lappa, or the helicopter shot. A shot that belongs to Dhoni and

Dhoni alone.

8

Chatty Selectors vs Dhoni Power

An accomplished all-rounder, Mohinder Amarnath lived in both heaven and hell during his cricketing

years. He played 69 matches for India over a span of two decades, and even earned the coveted Man of

the Match award in the finals of the 1983 ICC World Cup, India’s moment of triumph. Yet, during the

same period, the in-form Amarnath, for reasons unknown, was dropped by the selectors from 64 other

matches.

But the affable Amarnath took everything in his stride. He came from a family whose members had

often drawn flak from the BCCI for being outspoken. In fact, his father the flamboyant Lala Amarnath,

was sent home after a brawl during an infamous English tour of 1936.

Twenty-five years ago, Amarnath (Mohinder) had called the Indian selectors ‘a bunch of jokers’ and

then been duly sacked by them. That was a nightmarish moment for one of India’s finest all-rounders,

but Amarnath had put it behind him and moved on in life. And ironically in 2010, the BCCI brought

him back as a selector.

But Amarnath had not changed. He made it clear to the BCCI that, as a selector he was meant to

concentrate on the national selection and push for the selection of the best team possible. And, under

no circumstances, should he be pushed to ‘accommodate undeserving candidates’.

This attitude was of course not appreciated by the BCCI top brass (read the all powerful president, N.

Srinivasan). But there were no fireworks, ostensibly because Amarnath was now seen as a moderate

selector who – actually – was not making things difficult for the four other members of the selection

committee. In short, he did not start out by asking for the heads of some top players in the side.

But Amarnath could be reined in only for so long. The two disastrous series in England and Australia

right after the 2011 ICC World Cup triumph had made the Goa-based Amarnath sit up and wonder

whether or not it was time to replace the skipper of the side, Mahendra Singh Dhoni. It was a tough call

but he wanted it to happen.

Suggesting the same in the selection room was akin to committing harakiri, simply because the Indian

skipper’s proximity to Srinivasan was known to one and all. To compound matters, Dhoni was also the

skipper of the Chennai Super Kings, an IPL team reportedly owned by Srinivasan’s son-in-law,

Meyippan Gurumurthy. Later, Gurumurthy – in the spot-fixing scandal during IPL 2013 – denied he

had anything to do with the team and that he was a ‘normal worker’.

As was expected, the other selectors disagreed including the chief selector Krishnamachari Srikkanth,

who – surprisingly – was also one of the brand ambassadors for Chennai Super Kings.

Amarnath pushed Gautam Gambhir’s – who was more consistent with the bat – name for captaincy

of the Test team. There were others like former India opener Sunil Gavaskar who wanted Virat Kohli to

head the ODI side. And while Amarnath was asking for a new Test captain, he was also not averse to

India having a new ODI captain as well.

The news, as usual, had already leaked to the media.

Amarnath was unprepared for what lay ahead of him. While the selection committee meeting was still

going on, the convener of the meeting, Sanjay Jagdale, called up Srinivasan and let him know what

Amarnath’s stance was. Jagdale’s call was unwarranted because the selectors are not meant to inform the

BCCI president of everything they do. At least that’s what the BCCI has always maintained to prove that

it’s a professional body. But in reality, it’s exactly the opposite. Srinivasan, reportedly playing golf in

Chennai then with his business partners, was aghast. Furious, he went straight home, picked up a BCCI

rulebook and found what he was looking for: if a team has been finalized, then it must be ratified by the

president. No questions asked. With Srinivasan’s veto powers, the plan to push Dhoni out of captaincy

fell flat. But something worse happened.

The news of Amarnath’s stance as a selector and Srinivasan’s opposition to it spread like wildfire. Soon

it was apparent that the knives were, slowly yet surely, out for Amarnath, one of India’s finest cricketers

and a very knowledgeable analyst of the game.

Amarnath had served his term as a selector and now it was time for him to get a promotion and

become the chairman of the selection committee. As expected, it was a role that the veteran cricketer was

looking forward to.

On 18 September 2012, Amarnath was on the verge of being made the chairman of the BCCI selection

committee (as per the rotation policy), but a terse phone call from a top BCCI official (rumoured in the

newspapers to be N. Srinivasan) spoilt the show for him. Not only was Amarnath not made the

chairman, he was also sacked from the selection panel reportedly for a series of decisions he had taken as

north zone selector.

Amarnath could only laugh: it was probably the last time in his illustrious career that he would be

humiliated by the world’s richest cricket board. He switched off his handset to avoid calls from prying

television reporters keen to hook him up on their networks for the mandatory chat with the anchor.

Everyone wanted to hear his story. But Amarnath kept quite.

He then switched on his i-Pad and wrote a few lines in Urdu on his Facebook page. Translated, it

read:

My soul yearns to forsake this world And its selfish and heartless way;Where beats of heart do speak of – lies and deceit at play.Know not divine rule of life – the debts we all must pay.

One of the earliest responses to his post was from his wife, Bickoo, who wrote: ‘They will pay for their

betrayal, one way or the other. God is great. Sab dekhta hai.’

There were several reasons for Amarnath’s departure, among which were: he was not politically correct;

he had asked for skipper Dhoni’s head after the disastrous tour in England and Australia; he insisted on

dropping out-of-form players from the national selection to play domestic cricket to regain form (the list

even included the legendary Sachin Tendulkar). Moreover, Amarnath had donated a bat belonging to

his father to Cricket Australia because he felt the memorabilia would be treasured more by CA than by

BCCI which – till date – has not been able to set up a home for such memorabilia. This act was seen as

being sacrilegious by the gods of Indian cricket (read BCCI).

Earlier, Amarnath had vented his ire on Facebook on not seeing a single BCCI official at Rahul

Dravid’s farewell party. He had written: ‘During Rahul Dravid’s felicitation, none of the top BCCI

officials were present – very sad – but cricketers from all over the country were there – cheers to Rahul

and fellow cricketers.’ More troubles followed for Amarnath when a BCCI official posed the following

query to the president: Amarnath lived in Goa, which was not exactly a cricketing hub, so how could

Jimmy (Amarnath’s nickname) shape Indian cricket. The official response from the BCCI was calm and

composed. ‘This (dropping Amarnath) is the decision of the BCCI and one cannot go into reasons. But

a possible reason could be that the BCCI wanted a new-look selection committee,’ board president N.

Srinivasan said.

Once more Indian cricket had been redefined by its hidden rules. The Amarnath episode made it

explicit that it was important for a cricketer to have good relations with the selectors to gain entry into

the national selection and retain that position. At the same time, the hidden rule for the selector was to

secure the confidence of the chief selector and also the board’s top brass. But Amarnath was seen

flouting both rules, as a cricketer first and then as a selector. He had to go.

The only person to defy the rule was Sunil Gavaskar, who got away after publicly denouncing the

selectors as ‘court jesters’. The other, lesser mortals would dare not criticize the board and its

functioning.

Central to this controversy was the country’s cricket captain, Dhoni and his shrewd understanding of

the backroom politics that is the domain of the selectors. Throughout the Amarnath issue, the Indian

skipper did not utter a word, except to tell reporters that changing a captain does not necessarily

improve the side’s fortunes. Dhoni knew he had Srinivasan’s support. He had nothing to worry about.

He also had first-hand knowledge of how the selectors operated and knew that they could create

tensions for some of the biggest stars in the side.

The Indian captain knew how cricket selectors in India have managed to hog – at least – the same

amount of limelight and headline space as cricket and cricketers in India. Once upon a time, they even

used to write columns to indicate their preference of players – a practice which was eventually banned by

the BCCI. While the selectors were wild about the decision to ban their columns there really wasn’t

much that they could do about it.

There have been countless occasions where selectors have been accused of partisanship – one

television channel sting revealed the rampant corruption in the selection process by exposing selectors

who were seeking cash for plugging candidates in state-level cricket. The country’s intelligence agencies

have often reported how some selectors openly interact with bookies, even inviting them to family

weddings.

Dhoni’s first brush with the selectors took place when he was called to Delhi for the Railway trials in

2002 and it was not a happy experience. But ever since he became the Indian cricket captain, he learnt

from his fellow cricketers and friends ways to handle the selectors. He also learnt how to be on the ‘right

side’ of selectors every time.

Dhoni’s learning lessons were triggered by an interesting incident. A story that came to his attention

when he was just getting into the groove of the game, was that of V.B. Chandrasekhar. The Tamil Nadu

opener of yesteryear was a competent Ranji level player, and later assumed the role of a national selector.

It was in 2005 when Chandrasekhar had a bitter argument with a fellow selector from the East Zone,

Pranab Roy, over retaining Saurav Ganguly as the Indian captain. The captaincy debate – those who

know claim – centered on personalities, not performances. The incident took place when India was to

visit Zimbabwe to play a tri-series involving the hosts and New Zealand. Up till then, for close to five

years, the Bengal southpaw’s appointment as captain had been a foregone conclusion, with selectors

proposing his name over a cup of tea and signing the needed documents on the BCCI letterheads before

leaving for the airport and heading home.

However, this time around, Chandrasekhar wanted Dravid to replace Ganguly and mentioned that

even coach Greg Chappell was keen for a change. An initial invitation issued to Chappell to join the 13

August 2005 selection meeting was later withdrawn inexplicably. Chappell later told the selectors that

he would not like to comment on the captaincy issue.

Just before it began, BCCI Joint Secretary Goutam Dasgupta left abruptly saying he didn’t expect the

meeting to last long. The meeting started a little after 3 p.m. and ended around 4.45 p.m. Four of the

selectors, Kiran More, Pranab Roy, Yashpal and Gopal Sharma favoured Ganguly while Chandrasekhar

backed Dravid. This standoff eventually triggered a two-hour argument between Chandrasekhar and

Roy.

Roy mooted the long-standing proposal to name Ganguly as the skipper, arguing that this committee

had not had the opportunity to name a captain for a year. But his suggestion did not find favour with

most of the selectors who felt it would be unfair to do so when their term was nearing its end and that it

would be most appropriate to leave it to the new selection committee that would be in place in the last

week of September. Still, they favoured Ganguly over Dravid. Dhoni read all about the meeting from

newspaper reports. He was aware how tough it is to be a captain and retain the slot in India. He realized

cricket was part-politics.

Later, in another team selection meeting in November 2005 for the three Test home series against the

visiting Sri Lankans, Roy again pushed for Ganguly’s inclusion. With his candidate no longer the

captain, Roy wanted him included as an all-rounder over an in-form Zaheer Khan in the side. This time

around Chandrasekhar backed Zaheer. In fact, Chandrasekhar had ridiculed Roy in the meeting for

blindly backing Ganguly and pointed out that the former skipper had never been considered an all-

rounder in the side.

However, just a few months later in January 2006, Chandrasekhar sang a completely different tune.

He praised Ganguly’s batting in the ongoing Bengal-Tamil Nadu Ranji trophy match, saying that it was

good to see the left-hander getting into form ahead of the gruelling series against Pakistan. ‘It was

heartening to see Ganguly getting into rhythm. The footwork, timing and focus to play a long innings

seemed well in place ahead of the tour,’ Chandrasekhar told reporters after Ganguly struck a well-made

59 in the first innings for Bengal at the Eden Gardens.

The former selector added that he was also impressed by Ganguly’s aggressive bowling. ‘He was never

negative and that is a positive sign.’ Ganguly had picked up three crucial wickets on the opening day of

the match before he was barred from bowling for repeatedly straying into the pitch. ‘The passion and

pride for his team is worth emulating,’ Chandrasekhar said. Asked to assess Ganguly as an all-rounder,

Chandrasekar even said the former skipper was more than a handy bowler in conditions assisting seam

movement. ‘It was already a surprise to me that he bowled less when he was in-charge. Perhaps he knew

his strength all along,’ Chandrasekhar added.

Dhoni was aware of both these incidents. His friends had warned him about this cat and mouse game

played by the chatty selectors and nosey reporters. He had been cautioned about the sudden U-turns

(read denying everything they said within months) made by selectors.

Dhoni wanted to make what was going on with the selection committee with him at the centre of it, a

thing of past. How he did it is indeed an interesting tale.

Ever since he became the captain of the national team, Dhoni had told the then BCCI top man,

Sharad Pawar and other officials that it was imperative to maintain privacy during selection committee

meetings. In fact, the Indian skipper was not happy with news of the selection discussions leaking out

every now and then. Dhoni had been surprised at how his decision to drop both Ganguly and Dravid

during the ODI series in Australia was public knowledge within hours of concluding the meeting –

which had taken place via tele-conferencing. In fact, he had told a friend: ‘How do they know what we

talked about during something as important as a tele-conference? It is amazing. Who leaks such

confidential news after the meeting?’ He had no definitive answers; those who did offer a name, had no

evidence to back it up. They merely hinted at some selectors’ proximity to certain reporters.

Once he had been named captain, Dhoni had hoped that the selectors would mend their ways and

avoid such occurrences in the future. He knew it was bad for the players and bad for the game if leaks

continued to filter into the media. He had, in the past, heard stories about how Ganguly had routinely

dropped Kumble – especially during the 2003 ICC World Cup in South Africa – to accommodate

Harbhajan Singh and his decision to do so was systematically leaked to the media. Dhoni had not liked

it. Why don’t we value our players, especially someone as senior as Kumble, he had asked then. No

answers had been forthcoming.

In typical Dhoni style, the skipper one day decided to take the bull by the horns. On 21 November

2007, he openly expressed his disgust over ‘leaks’ from closed-door selection committee meetings

(especially after the selectors’ meeting in Kanpur a few days earlier), but stopped short of denying

reports of differences with the national selectors.

At the meeting in Kanpur, Dhoni had strongly opposed the decision to drop left-arm fast bowler R.P.

Singh for the final four ODIs of the series against England, to make room for Irfan Pathan. Singh was

part of the national selection for Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka tours but ended up making way –

repeatedly – for Zaheer Khan, Munaf Patel and Ishant Sharma in the playing eleven. In two one-dayers

against England in November 2007, he had given away 74 runs for one wicket from nine overs. Irfan had

last played a Test in April 2007 and was dropped from the side after failing to impress in the ODIs in Sri

Lanka. But in the year’s Ranji season he had bowled with renewed zeal and picked up 12 wickets in two

matches.

Two papers hyped the story. One was the Kolkata-based Ananda Bazar Patrika (ABP) and the other

the Sunday Indian Express. In fact, one selector told the Sunday Indian Express: ‘Dhoni was quite upset and

angry when we decided to drop RP. There was a heated exchange on this issue during the meeting.

Some things were said but this happens.’ Meanwhile, the ABP reported that Dhoni had told the selectors

that he would quit if he didn’t have his way. The report explained in detail all that had transpired

between the enraged skipper and the national selectors.

Dhoni was not amused. He admitted – on the eve of the fourth ODI in Bangalore – that the reports,

especially the one in ABP, had created a bit of a problem for him, especially regarding his immediate

dealings with R.P. Singh and Irfan Pathan. ‘In a scenario like this, you have to get in touch with both

R.P. Singh and Irfan Pathan and ensure that there are no differences,’ Dhoni told reporters at the venue

of the ODI. ‘RP shouldn’t feel that I’m going out of the way in supporting him, nor should Irfan feel

unwanted.’

The confidentiality between the captain and the selectors should be respected at all times, argued

Dhoni, adding: ‘I don’t know where the reports came from. What happens inside while the selectors

and the captain are there, if it comes out, it is disgusting and disrespectful. I think if they are supposed to

come out, it’s better [that] we have live television in the room there. What happens, nobody should

know apart from the eight guys who are sitting down.’

Dhoni was emphatic that such leaks were detrimental for the game and asked the newspapers to name

the selector who had leaked the news: ‘It would be good for Indian cricket if you quote that person.’ The

then BCCI vice-president and Finance Committee Chairman Rajeev Shukla – true to his style – tried to

hush up the issue and denied the reports instantly. ‘The reports are baseless and we cannot comment

on such reports. There were no differences between the selectors and Dhoni,’ said Shukla. Everyone

knew he was being economical with the truth.

Dhoni, meanwhile, was still sulking. What was the point of meeting in secrecy to decide who would

be in and who would be out of the national team if the details were out in the media hours before the

official announcement? No wonder the selectors were the butt of jokes. However, they still didn’t get it.

Why? Dhoni was desperate for an answer.

It seemed to him that over time someone had institutionalized the format of leaking news. How does

it work, he asked his friends? In the days of state-controlled television and no 24/7 breaking news, the

format worked with a handful of reporters who would hang around the toilets of the offices of the

particular cricket board where the meeting was being held. And through nods and finger signals, veteran

journalists would instantly follow the ins and outs of the team from selectors heading for the washroom.

Those were the days when print media was predominant. For the newspaper reporters, knowing the

team beforehand was also a bit of an exercise in ego boosting. One earned brownie points for letting the

editor know in advance who all would be included in the team, particularly when one was proved right

the next day.

That used to happen during the days when cricketers such as Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Srinivas

Venkatraghavan, K. Srikkanth and Mohammed Azharuddin were playing. And continued even later

when Ajay Jadeja, Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Anil Kumble, and Rahul Dravid came into the

game. All top players had their favourite reporters (and they still exist today) who would routinely push

such news in advance and also splash the inside dope about the ‘confidential’ meetings with great pride.

Dhoni – much to his frustration – came into the game in the era of live television and the madness of

breaking news. The news market was flooded by a plethora of channels and, for obvious reasons, the

demand for cricket news (it is, after all, one of the four Cs of broadcast news, the other three being

Cinema, Comedy, and Crime) was on an all-time high, as channels vied to outdo each other in the

broadcast of scoops.

At times, the channel would get it totally wrong and run with a half-baked story. The one that had

Dhoni in tears was the one regarding the death of his pet dog: the television channels said the animal

had died of shame because of the pathetic performance of the Indian skipper. ‘Blame me, my cricket, my

performance, why my pet?’ said the distraught Indian skipper as he was comforted by his close team

mates Suresh Raina and Virat Kohli.

BCCI officials, also aware of the incident, asked Dhoni if he needed them to speak to the channel

heads. Dhoni’s response was a terse ‘No’. Earlier, there had been occasions when exasperated BCCI

officials would call up the sports editors of the erring channels and demand an apology for having

pushed inaccurate Breaking News hours before the team was announced. The channel would stop for a

while but again resume the headlines, typically minutes before the official press conference was to start.

‘I have stopped calling them because it is of no use. Otherwise, we will have to issue legal notices to a

majority of the channels. They drive me mad day in and day out with their inane phone calls and

phony stories,’ Niranjan Shah, a top BCCI official, once said in an interview.

And bulk of the breaking news stemmed from one issue: disagreements between selectors and

skippers. These are not uncommon in any cricketing nation but in India they always assumed a larger-

than-life proportion. However, unlike Amarnath’s open comment about the selectors, not many had

taken on the members of the selection committee publicly. By making his displeasure known openly,

Dhoni had for the first time, ticked the selectors off. In short, he had publicly asked them to mend their

ways.

By doing so, Dhoni had also triggered a serious debate over how much of a say a captain should have

in picking his side. Cricket cognoscenti agreed that the captain’s issues with the selection committee –

besides making great copy for the front page or the 9 p.m. news headlines – was also an issue that had

long been ignored by the BCCI. Yet, no one had taken the pains to resolve it.

But Dhoni wanted the debate to be resolved and in fact, told a few confidants that he was sanguine

that behind every leak was an interested party. The Indian skipper – for obvious reasons – was curious to

explore why one selector or the other repeatedly leaked sensitive information? What is it that they had to

gain?

He, however, did not want to speculate. He told his friends it was pointless, because unless one had a

recording of a conversation with the journalist in question, no one would know for sure who it was –

although Dhoni was pretty sure about the ‘little birds’ of the selection committee. And he had – by

using the media – expressed his disgust at the selectors. It was a strategic move on Dhoni’s part not to

confirm whether he had offered or had been threatened to step down, but by not denying it he actually

allowed people to assume there was some truth in the suggestion. Through this exercise he had told the

world that he would no longer tolerate any nonsense.

The ruse worked.

Many termed this as his masterstroke. ‘He told the media what he thinks of such leaks and sent a

strong message to the selectors,’ said former skipper Srikkanth who was to later become the chief selector.

Dhoni’s basic point was simple: the captain is only as good as his team and at the end of the day it is

the skipper’s head which is on the line if the team fails to perform. He was clear that the selectors should

understand that when he felt strongly about a certain player he would, as the captain, express his view

strongly. ‘I knew this incident could vitiate the atmosphere in the dressing-room. Just how much faith

will RP have in the captain if he could not sway the selectors? How much confidence will Irfan have, if he

believes the report that his captain threatened to quit when the selectors picked him in place of RP? And

imagine the kind of sledging when Irfan takes the field?’ Dhoni told a confidant.

Dhoni also shared an incident where Irfan was distinctly uncomfortable interacting with the Indian

skipper at a team dinner. Dhoni had to drag him to the table and tell him that he should not believe

what is written in the media. ‘I told him that the media had romantically linked him repeatedly to

tennis star Sania Mirza. Did he take those news stories seriously? So why bother about what the media

wrote about a selection meeting?’ Almost an hour after this conversation, Irfan began to look relaxed.

For the time being, the selectors did not confront the Indian captain. They knew Dhoni had got

Pawar and a handful of top players – including Tendulkar – to back him. But they all fumed privately.

And why not? After all, the media had tarred the selectors black, calling their behaviour unprofessional.

Still, the board remained silent. Emboldened, Dhoni decided to take a second step. He called the man

in charge, Sharad Pawar, one of the most influential cabinet ministers in the central UPA government. ‘It

needs to change immediately, sir,’ Dhoni told Pawar. He added: ‘If Indian cricket has to get

professionalism in its blood. Some things must change. How can I finalize a team if the selectors

continue to leak stories to the media?’

Soon after Dhoni walked out of his meeting with Pawar, the Maharashtra strongman called all

selectors individually and told them how upset he was with their behaviour. ‘I am not privy to what you

people decide about the team but its rank unprofessional to discuss such sensitive issues with the media.

Why can’t you all maintain a bit of privacy?’ The selectors got the message loud and clear.

But what prompted Dhoni to take on the selectors? He knew that he was not in the wrong in his

selection and that the captain must have the team he desires. And furthermore, the process of team

selection which is the most crucial element in building a successful unit can either be charged or

vitriolic. Everyone expects passionate arguments, even fights when picking the best possible side. But

once the task is complete, the selectors have to present a united front, believed Dhoni.

Dhoni wanted to nip the tendencies of the selectors to play petty politics, in the bud and by having

Pawar on his side, the Indian captain had achieved the near impossible.

A couple of years later, Dhoni’s luck ran out. After the glory of India’s 2011 World Cup victory came

two disastrous back-to-back tours of England and Australia. The Indian team faltered badly, losing

eight Tests on the trot.

The selectors were once again back on the top.

Dhoni was far from his cheerful self. After losing the Boxing Day Test to the hosts in Melbourne,

Dhoni arrived in Sydney looking extremely unhappy. Honestly, it wasn’t just the loss that had left him

peeved and tired, Dhoni was battling a larger crisis that revolved entirely around him: his limited say in

the selection panel.

He told the Hindustan Times how he would give a list of players to the selectors only to find many of

the players he wanted not named in the final squad. ‘I don’t have a say in the selection. I ask for certain

players, send it in writing to the selectors and when the squad is announced their names are missing,’

Dhoni told the daily.

Interestingly, the newspaper dug more and found what Dhoni was saying was correct. For example,

Rohit Sharma – after his fine showing in the ODI series in the Caribbean – was surprised to see himself

out of the Test side despite a personal assurance by coach Duncan Fletcher. ‘After that innings (match-

winning knock of 86 in Antigua), Duncan came up to me and said, “I can’t believe you’re not in the Test

squad”,’ Sharma told the daily Hindustan Times in an interview soon after that tour. India had since

played 11 Tests with Sharma still to make his Test debut.

What was more disturbing for Dhoni was the fact that in the past, both he and coach Fletcher had

taken bold decisions. Interestingly, it was in Australia in 2009 that the Indian skipper had bluntly told

the selectors that he didn’t want ageing heroes Ganguly and Dravid in the ODI tri-series that followed

the Test series, and opted for younger faces. The strategy worked well as India won that series with

many new names emerging. But once losses began, the selectors were back to their usual self of plugging

semi-retired cricketers who were high on politics but low on performance.

The slugfest continued unabated. Dhoni, aware of this seemingly unending cold war between him

and the selectors, realized what works best for the captain of the Indian cricket team: score wins and

remain close to the power centre. As a result not only is Dhoni the skipper of Chennai Super Kings but

also vice president of India Cement, a company promoted and owned by Srinivasan. Now he has the

full confidence of the selectors – thanks to the team’s superlative performance in 2012-13 – and has

effectively silenced what he has always considered to be the ‘troublesome Indian media’.

9

Wanderers Knight:The T20 World Cup

ESPN Star Sports’ seasoned commentator Alan Wilkins narrated this incident after returning to

Singapore from South Africa, his former home where he spent his formative years playing cricket,

drinking wine, and dating beautiful women.

The city: Johannesburg. Time: around 8.30 p.m. Day: 23 September 2007 – the day before India was

slated to play arch-rival Pakistan in the final of the inaugural T20 World Cup at the 34,000 capacity

Wanderers Stadium. Wilkins had always liked the Wanderers. For him, the stadium – also the home

ground for the Highveld Lions who were once known as Gauteng of Transvaal – was special. During the

apartheid era only whites used to play here. And when in 1991, South Africa gained readmission into

international cricket, the local authorities wanted a total overhaul of the stadium. ‘It was built to host

the big ties, the finals of world cricket. The organizers were very hopeful that some of the best matches in

the world will be held at the Wanderers. And it happened,’ remembered Wilkins.

Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his team’s enfant terrible, S. Sreesanth stood in front of the

huge glass window in Dhoni’s room in the majestic Hilton hotel. The window overlooked the classy

Wanderers Stadium, home to many cricket tournaments. Just four years ago the stadium had hosted the

2003 ICC World Cup finals. Then also India was one of the finalists but lost the trophy to Australia in

the end.

The team meeting had just been wrapped up and all players were in their respective rooms. The Kerala

pacer had come to return a bat he had borrowed from his captain earlier for a light practice.

The two talked for a little over ten minutes, during which Dhoni told Sreesanth to maintain a decent

line and length and not turn wayward with the ball. ‘There’s the trophy and loads of prestige at stake

because it is a match with Pakistan.’ The pressure was high, very high. It was also Dhoni’s litmus test,

having been named captain of the T20 side only a few months ago. Sreesanth, always exuberant, joked

to his skipper: ‘Who knows, I could be involved in the final showdown of the finals.’ Dhoni just smiled

and said, ‘Then you should certainly not mess up anything.’ Chastised, Sreesanth left in a huff.

Indian team members were flooded with hundreds and thousands of SMSs that clogged their

handsets. The Indian skipper was no exception, his handset too beeped every now and then. Dhoni’s

mind, however, was on other things. He knew what a loss to Pakistan would result in, just as he was

aware of how a win over the arch-rivals could impact his career.

Dhoni was also acutely aware of the fact that he had been named captain for the tournament after

some of the big stars of Indian cricket – Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, and Rahul Dravid – had

opted out. He had gladly accepted the role and slipped into it as if he was born for it. And when he

landed in Johannesburg with the rest of the team from London – only Virender Sehwag made his way

directly from Mumbai – the tournament was yet to capture the popular or media imagination. And it

was mainly because the T20 format had not yet registered on the minds of millions of cricket fans across

the world, who were used to the standard formats of ODIs and Tests.

The initial matches did not do much to trigger people’s interest in the T20 World Cup; even the locals

in South Africa were a bit skeptical of the whole thing. But what was interesting was that the

tournament had its share of controversies right from the first day. And ironically, it was the controversies

that directed people’s attention towards the T20 tournament. The first of these was that Pakistan’s

temperamental speedster Shoaib Akhtar was sent back home for hitting teammate Mohammed Asif

with a bat. The tournament gained further media visibility when Indian newspapers reported that

Yuvraj Singh had claimed in an interview with a local daily that the T20 format was not good for cricket

bats because some of the ones he had used – especially for trial matches – had already been damaged. It

is however, a completely different story that in the semi-finals against England at Centurion, Yuvraj had

hit six consecutive deliveries out of the field. Singh’s comments made headlines, with one daily even

suggesting that BCCI had sent additional bats for the entire team. However, soon these controversial

headlines made way for more on-field related ones, most notable of them being Singh’s over boundaries

off six consecutive balls of an over against England.

It seemed that by now everyone was following the tournament.

The previous day Dhoni had asked his boys to take it easy and do something relaxing like watch a

movie. That no one ventured out of the hotel was understandable. The pressure of playing in such a

final was just too high. And the fact that the rival team was Pakistan added more tension to the already

high-voltage match. Whenever the two teams have met, a large part of the game has revolved around

prestige (read victory) and nothing else. No Indian cricketer wants to lose against Pakistan. If you were

to ask members of the Pakistan team, the answer would be the same.

During the tournament, Dhoni had told his teammates: ‘I do not know why the media makes such an

issue about everything associated with cricket in India. Perhaps they need every bit of a cricketer for their

daily news updates. I have often told you to relax and watch a movie because cinema is a big part of our

lives, isn’t it? My idea of watching a movie is to enjoy it at a multiplex. It’s best to inform the theatre

owners that you want to come with your friends so that privacy is ensured. And Johannesburg is not a

city where we would get mobbed. So why not watch a movie?’ No one responded. Not keen to think too

much about his efforts to ease pressures before the final, Dhoni hit the bed.

But his mind was restless. Memories of another era kept him awake. If he won the final, it would be

India’s first World Cup win after 1983. He was only two years old then and his parents did not even own

a television set when that historic win took place. Dhoni wondered what would happen if he won the

day, and that too with raw talent? When Kapil Dev lifted the ICC Prudential World Cup in 1983, R.P.

Singh, one of Dhoni’s trusted bowlers, was not even born. Irfan Pathan, the other pacer from Vadodara

was only a year old. Delhi’s Gautam Gambhir was a toddler, and Yuvraj the flashy all-rounder was, like

Dhoni, only two years old.

The Indian captain remembered what coach Ian Chappell had told him at the start of the

tournament: ‘You will have to play, do not fear the words of these men. Play well, they will fear your

cricket.’ Dhoni tried hard to sleep.

But his slumber was broken by the ringing of the phone. It was India’s megastar Shah Rukh Khan on

the line: ‘Sleep well, you will win tomorrow.’ Khan hung up. Instantly, the phone rang again. This time it

was the czar of Indian cricket, Lalit Modi: ‘Still awake? Sleep now and play well tomorrow. This is a big

match for us.’

It was now the morning of 24 September 2007. Dhoni got the day’s first bit of bad news just as

sunlight began to trickle into his room. Coach Lalchand Rajput had called him to discuss something

serious. Dhoni asked him to wait. Around breakfast time, Rajput re-confirmed the rumour that was

doing the rounds: Virender Sehwag, the team’s hardest hitter, was out of the side with a groin injury.

There would have to be a replacement, right? Who would that be? Yusuf Pathan, instantly replied

Dhoni, confident of Pathan’s hard-hitting abilities. He reminded Rajput of Pathan’s 100-plus strike rate

in domestic cricket. Rajput agreed. The showdown began with a packed Wanderers stadium. Dhoni and

his boys knew they had to win to ensure prestige and pride for both the team and millions of Indian

fans. Seconds before the entire team walked out of the dressing room, the young captain remarked with

steely determination: ‘Jeetna hai, ab to cup lekey hi India vaapas jayenge (We have to win the day, and must

return to India with the trophy).’ An ICC security official found the Indians ‘extremely tense’ as they

walked in and out of their dressing room. Everyone probably understood that it was a do or die

situation for the Men in Blue. Dhoni was sure that he would not accept defeat. In fact, the captain had

told some of his friends in India over the phone: ‘We should not lose. If we have to settle for something

other than a win, I would prefer a tie and share the Cup. But I will not lose.’

The Blue Billion Express – thanks to some brilliant teamwork – had chugged on merrily into the

finals, helping the side maintain its all-win record against their bitter foes in all World Cup matches.

Every single Indian player knew, if ever there was a match to change their fortunes, this was it. This was

the big day; this was indeed the big match.

Giving the team loads of support was 40-year-old Gary Kirsten, a former South African cricketer, who

had been selected as coach of the Indian cricket team after Greg Chappell got the sack following the

team’s unmitigated ICC World Cup disaster in the Caribbean islands. Gary knew the ground and knew

what the Indians had to do to play a good game on South African soil. He knew the big guns of Indian

cricket – Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, and Saurav Ganguly – were not in the side and this was

Dhoni’s first tournament as captain. Like the captain, the coach too was under immense pressure. But

being a South African, he knew how the pitch would turn. He had tipped Dhoni adequately after the

team’s morning meeting.

But in the final, good luck did not come India’s way easily. The large, flag-waving gathering of Indians

at the Wanderers roared as India won the toss and chose to bat on a good pitch. The crowd gave the two

Indian openers a standing ovation as they walked out in the middle. Yusuf Pathan, Irfan’s older brother,

replaced Sehwag and opened the innings with Delhi’s left-hand batsman Gautam Gambhir.

The showdown started. The crowd roared, beer flowed and every time Indian superstar Shah Rukh

Khan, who was then sporting a ponytail, came to the balcony to smoke, there was near pandemonium.

King Khan was not alone. He had his family and actresses Deepika Padukone – on a high because

promos of her debut film Om Shanti Om were already out – Priyanka Chopra, Juhi Chawla, Rani

Mukherjee, Diya Mirza, and Amisha Patel for company. And every time they would come out onto the

balcony, the crowds would go ballistic. Hundreds of South Africans also filled the stands to see an India-

Pakistan final. Cheap tickets worth Rand 160 (approximately 1200 rupees) were selling in the black for

R 1200 (approximately 8400 rupees). The T20 fever had caught on and many ICC officials said it was

the best cricket tournament since 1975.

There was high-voltage energy in the stands even before the first ball was bowled.

Taking his place, Pathan made his intentions clear from the very start, clobbering Mohammad Asif for

a huge six in the very first over of the innings. The first over – thankfully – got 13 runs on the board for

India. But in his next spell, Asif had his revenge when he had Pathan edging a pull for Shoaib Malik to

take a well-judged catch at mid-on. Pathan returned dejected to the dressing room after scoring 15 off

eight balls.

Cheers from the Indian spectators started dying as the team’s wickets began to fall like ninepins. It was

pint-sized Gambhir who saved the day and slammed a swashbuckling 75 to prop up the total. The left-

hander got his first 50 of the tournament, but the team failed to capitalize on a reasonably good start. In

fact, youngster Rohit Sharma – who remained unbeaten on 35 – was the other notable contributor as

the Men in Blue found the going tough in the face of the disciplined and accurate line and length

bowling maintained by the Pakistani team. This allowed Pakistan to virtually take control of the game

from the midway stage.

The Men in Green had Umar Gul, a lanky pacer, who played a big role in upsetting the tempo with a

brilliant of 3 for 28 in just four overs. Among his wickets were those of Yuvraj Singh, Dhoni, and Gautam

Gambhir. The failure of Yuvraj and Dhoni, two of India’s most explosive middle-order strikers – they had

championed the team’s cause brilliantly in the run-up to the final – meant tension, stress, and more

anxiety for the Men in Blue.

Yuvraj, who had made news earlier in the tournament with his blazing innings that included six sixes

against England (poor Chris Broad had been at the receiving end of that Yuvi hurricane) and a great

score against Australia, didn’t quite get going and remained a shadow of his flashy self during his 19-

ball stay, before being dismissed for a paltry 14 runs. The lanky all-rounder from Punjab hit just one

boundary before top-edging Umar Gul for an easy return catch. In the dressing room, someone told

Dhoni that the Pakistanis, realizing Yuvraj’s prowess of hitting pacers all over, had deliberately planned

to slow down his pace by introducing a host of spinners. Dhoni nodded his head in agreement. He

realized that Yuvraj – always keen to hit the big ones – was at sea while playing those crafty Pakistani

spinners.

Dhoni, who stepped out with loads of hope, didn’t impress either. Wilkins, who had stepped out of

the commentary box and walked close to the ground, found the Indian skipper tense, very tense. Dhoni

failed to handle some aggressive bowling by Gul. Despite being ‘no-balled’ for a beamer on the first

delivery, Gul sent in a beauty that had Dhoni going for the big hit and missing the ball completely: his

leg stump went flying. The Pakistani players were ecstatic, so were their fans who painted themselves in

green and carried huge flags and often ran close to the small wall near the boundary ropes (much to the

chagrin of the local police).

To many it seemed that India was going to lose the match. In fact, that was the feeling inside the

ESPN Star Sports commentary box. The match was increasingly slipping out of India’s grip.

When it mattered most, the Indian players just didn’t get the big hits. After ten overs India had 69

runs on the board for the loss of two wickets. The side could add only 87 runs in their next 10 overs and

with only a paltry 47 coming in the last five. By all means, this was not the kind of performance India

had expected from its players in the finals. The lines on Dhoni’s forehead – evident from repeated

television replays – indicated the turmoil in his mind. The captain was tense, watching his boys walk

onto the pitch and walk back into the dressing room at such short intervals. The skipper had some

hopes from Robin Uthappa but he too lasted just 11 balls before being caught by Shahid Afridi at cover

for eight off a superb Sohail Tanvir delivery.

Gambhir remained the last man standing for India. All this while, the Delhi southpaw batted

patiently and picked up a few useful boundaries. His pulls and cuts were brilliant; the two consecutive

fours he hit off Hafeez in the 10th over before hitting Afridi for his first six had class written all over them.

Gambhir fell in the 18th over when he tried a cheeky sweep off Gul and was caught at short fine leg.

Rohit Sharma, who used the long handle to great effect, was India’s last hope, hitting two sixes and a

boundary to pick up 14 runs off the last over.

Having scored a mere 157, it certainly seemed as if Dhoni’s team had handed the match to Pakistan

on a platter. The rival team simply had to score at a comfortable rate of 7.9 in order to clinch the T20

title in its inaugural edition. With some hard-hitting batsmen in their side and the mercurial Shahid

Afridi in good form, it seemed as if Pakistan would easily coast to a win.

Dhoni did not speak before leading his side onto the field. As the ground reporter for ESPN Star

Sports, Wilkins saw him up close and felt the Indian captain had a cloudy expression. He was obviously

tense. In fact, the Indian skipper – probably to avoid talking cricket with his teammates – had walked

out of the dressing room a few seconds before the rest of the side trooped out. Wilkins walked up to

Dhoni and quickly had a few words. ‘Just remain focused on the match, all the best.’ Dhoni merely

looked at Wilkins, thanked him, and walked onto the ground.

Wilkins knew the Indian skipper was under tremendous pressure. ‘I told him to just remain focused

on the match, reminding him of the big Indian win over Pakistan in the 2003 World Cup in South

Africa. I told him in that match also, the Indian skipper Saurav Ganguly could not perform with the bat

and was out to a controversial leg before decision.’ But ultimately his side had won the day.

Wilkins said it seemed multiple things were going on in the Indian captain’s mind and it was quite

obvious that he would not talk.

The Indians wanted to start the fight in style. But they messed it up from the very first over. Sreesanth,

India’s temperamental and flashy speedster, who had talked with Dhoni the previous day, missed his

line and length and Imran Nazir clobbered him for two sixes and two fours. In his next spell – after

Dhoni rushed to have a word with the Kerala pacer – Sreesanth gained confidence and bowled a

maiden over to Younis Khan and redeemed himself.

But India wanted wickets.

R.P. Singh brought smiles on the Indian faces when he dismissed Mohammad Hafeez for one. The

batsman, with minimal footwork, was tempted into a dab outside the off stump. But what he eventually

did was bad news for the Pakistan dressing room: an outside edge that was plucked by Uthappa in the

slips. In his very next over, RP picked up another wicket, this time the victim being Kamran Akmal

whose poor, ugly swipe across the line resulted in hid wickets being shattered.

Then came the big one. Robin Uthappa, whose brilliant throw from the mid-off to the wicketkeeper’s

end landed right on the stumps, ending Nazir’s blistering 14-ball, 33-run innings. Nazir had reacted a

trifle late to Younis Khan’s sudden call for a run. Dhoni jumped with joy.

Meanwhile, in the stadium, beer flowed like water, Indian fans were ballistic, as was Shah Rukh Khan

in the VIP box. He kept on charging the team with theatricality, including standing on the chair when

Nazir was run out by Uthappa. In comparison, Lalit Modi was tense but restrained. He got visibly

irritated only once when he shooed off a camera crew that wanted a quick reaction. ‘Not now, the game

is still on. Let the match get over, do not bother me, for God’s sake,’ hollered Modi.

Khan did not last long. In fact, the calm-faced Joginder Sharma, who had done nothing worthwhile

till now, picked up this prized wicket when he had Khan caught at the mid-on by Irfan Pathan. Khan

wanted to thump Sharma out of the ground but mistimed his shot and lofted one at Pathan who did

not even move an inch before snapping the ball up.

The crowds were simply getting out of control. Twice, the riot police moved into the stands to separate

warring Indian and Pakistani supporters. At this point in time, it was anyone’s match. Pakistan had lost

three wickets for 53 runs but they still had Shoaib Malik at the crease and Shahid Afridi was yet to

come.

And then came the crucial break. It was time for Irfan Pathan to fire a good length delivery outside the

off stump. Malik did not get the ball fully on his bat and tried a pull. But all he managed was to sky the

delivery to midwicket where Sharma picked up what looked like an easy catch.

This was the turning point of the match. The Indians were back in the game as Pakistan team was

four down for 65. Indians, for the first time in the match, saw a glimmer of hope.

But then, Afridi had not yet come out of the dressing room. Afridi, Pakistan’s boom-boom man and

one of the finest all-rounders, then walked in amidst thunderous cheers from the supporters at

Wanderers. The Pakistani supporters expected him to carry the match through on his shoulders.

It was not to happen. The umpire declared Irfan’s first bouncer as a no-ball. Pakistani supporters

booed, Indians responded by screaming their lungs out. Pathan struck in his next delivery. He pitched

this one outside the off stump and lured Afridi to hit a big one. The ball connected with the bat and

Afridi seemed happy that he got right under the ball with his blade but there was no punch. The ball

went to the mid-off and Sreesanth ran from the long off to take a brilliant catch.

This time, Indian super star Shah Rukh Khan again came out into the balcony and raised his arms in

joy. And then, he broke into an impromptu jig. The crowds went ballistic.

It seemed that India was slowly inching towards victory.

Pathan then picked up the wicket of Yasir Arafat who looked all at sea while attempting a big hit over

the leg side. He missed the ball completely and allowed it to crash on. The stumps were shattered and

the entire Indian team converged on Pathan. For the first time in the match, Pakistan appeared in deep

trouble.

Sreesanth, who had troubles with his line and length, eventually got one right when he scalped Sohail

Tanvir. The Pakistani batsman had already hit two towering sixes – much to the relief of his fans – but

fell to a brilliant yorker from the Indian pacer. His left stump went flying.

In the 18th over, R.P. Singh again fired a brilliant one, sending Pakistani pacer Umar Gul back to the

dressing room for a duck with a brilliant yorker that uprooted his leg stump.

But then the fiery Misbah-ul Haq hit three towering sixes off Harbhajan Singh in the 19th over,

rattling the turbanator and once again the Indian team was under immense pressure. That one over

suddenly changed the equation again, this time in favour of Pakistan. It seemed the game was all over

for Dhoni and his men. Pakistani fans were over the moon.

Soon it was time for the final countdown.

The umpires called for the final over. It was a very, very tense moment for millions of Indians and

Pakistani fans all over the world. There was a hushed silence at the Wanderers. In Pakistan, television

channels reported how people were out on the streets with their prayer mats and were reading namaz,while in India, hundreds of thousands prayed and watched with bated breath wondering who would

Dhoni hand the ball to bowl the final over. Such was the tension that Mumbai’s Marine Drive – a busy

4.3 kilometre stretch near the sea – was devoid of any traffic as everyone had rushed to a television set to

see the final over. Even cabbies told commuters to wait. Some who insisted on being driven were told to

get off the cabs.

While Indian news channels showed fans out in the streets, all waiting for the final over to be

delivered, Pakistani news channels showed how everyone was praying in Pakistan – in homes, streets,

highways – for a World Cup win.

Meanwhile the tension in the stadium was palpable. Pakistan needed 13 runs off the last over. As

Misbah and Mohammed Asif took their stands, Dhoni surprised everyone by calling on Joginder

Sharma to bowl the ultimate over. Sharma, who was clearly overwhelmed by the enormity of the task

walked up to the captain and took the ball. He was nervous, and it showed. Sharma started with a wide

and followed it up with a dot ball. Tensions ran high on the field as Dhoni walked up to the bowler and

told him to steady himself. Meanwhile minor scuffles broke out in the stadium between tense rival fans.

Rajput, the Indian coach, could not even stand on his chair. Stone-faced, his eyes – and those of rest of

the Indian team members – followed Sharma, India’s last bowler and last hope as he bowled the final

over. Someone close to him said Rajput was chanting the Gayatri mantra all through.

Things were not going India’s way. In fact, it seemed worse was still to come. Sharma mistimed his

delivery again and the ball sailed into the sightscreen as Misbah exalted after hitting his fourth six of the

match. Dhoni was crestfallen. Yet, he put on a brave face, walked up to Sharma to encourage him. Pull

yourself together, the game is not yet over, Dhoni told a visibly nervous Sharma.

With just six needed off four balls, Misbah was all set to lead Pakistan to a dream triumph. But it was

then that he lost the plot. Super charged, he went for a dangerous, yet delicate back chip over the fine leg

and Sreesanth – the man Dhoni once feared had messed his bowling in the finals – ran some 15 yards

and took the most memorable catch of his career. Pakistan was dismissed for 152 in 19.3 overs chasing

India’s 157 for 5. Misbah, who had hit four over boundaries in his knock of 43 off 38 balls, stood rooted

in the crease. It seemed from a distance that he did not know what had hit him. India had turned the

fortunes and won the inaugural T20 ICC World Cup. The delighted players basked in the glory of the

win as they stood under a cloud of confetti. In India millions of fans exploded with joy in front of their

television sets and out on the streets.

Dhoni’s confidence in a novice Sharma had paid off: his teammates had held on and made use of

every opportunity to claw themselves back into the game. The Men in Blue had been rewarded for that

stubbornness.

The BCCI top brass immediately announced a USD 3 million award for the team and also a special

prize, that actually amounted to a crore of rupees, for Yuvraj Singh, primarily for creating the world

record of six over boundaries in one over.

As India exploded into a never-seen-before frenzy – even PM Manmohan Singh issued a

congratulatory statement within ten minutes of the victory – Dhoni let everyone bask in the glory. His

sober demeanor reflected his awareness of the smallest of margins that can exist between victory and

defeat. He knew about the pressures of T20 cricket. While he walked to the dressing room, a boy called

him from the stands: ‘Dhoni, I need your shirt, can I have it?’ Dhoni looked at the crowd, found the face

and called the boy. The security officers led the kid to the ground as many saw Dhoni taking off his

World Cup winning shirt for an unknown kid. ‘It seemed he wanted to be alone for sometime; probably,

he was remembering his family, his room, his friends, the streets of Ranchi, the crowds of India. At that

point in time, he didn’t want to talk cricket,’ said Wilkins. ‘Wait for me, I will be back for the interview,’

yelled Dhoni as he rushed into the dressing room. The boy, meanwhile, had disappeared among the

crowd. ‘I was amazed to see his generosity,’ said Wilkins.

A while later Dhoni emerged from the dressing room. A fan handed him a huge tricolour and Dhoni

started running along the sidelines to complete a cycle of his life – a skipper with a World Cup. What

India had failed to accomplish in South Africa in 2003 and in the West Indies in 2007, was achieved

later that year, with the T20 trophy.

Back home, Dhoni’s mother Devki Devi remained transfixed in front of a statue of Lord Krishna. ‘Betane desh ko jitaya,’ she whispered to Paan Singh, her voice drowned by the din outside their Ranchi home.

An insider said both – holding hands – were weeping silently, tears of joy trickling down their cheeks

even as the city exploded into a crescendo of jubilation never seen before. It seemed Ranchi had

exhausted all its stock of candles and firecrackers, so endless was the celebration. Everyone – the

legendary Sachin Tendulkar included – was sanguine that with Dhoni around, Indian cricket was in

safe hands.

An earthy cricketer’s steady hands had led a team of young cricketers, with an average age of 25, to

emphatically announce their presence in the world of cricket.

10

Wife for DhoniThe summer of 2007 was typically Indian – it was hot. The captain of the national cricket team,

Mahendra Singh Dhoni was having an exceptional run. He had just wrapped up a day of grueling

practice when a non-playing staff of the team directed his attention towards something on the television

screen. Dhoni was flabbergasted to see the breaking news being broadcast on the news channels:

Dhoni’s Romance. The news channels, English and regional language included, were repeatedly

showing split screen shots – a standard practice whenever the news is that of a link-up between two

people – of Dhoni and Asin, a top Southern actress who gained countrywide fame after she had been

paired opposite Bollywood’s most prized catch, Aamir Khan in the soon-to-be-released film Ghajini.

‘What nonsense is this?’ Dhoni asked Yuvraj Singh, who was standing nearby watching the news

bulletin about the alleged link-up. ‘I had merely invited her to watch a match,’ remarked Dhoni. In the

past, the Indian skipper had also been linked with Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone after he and

Singh had gone for a dinner with the star and Lakshmi Rai, a Chennai-based actress.

Singh, more accustomed to handling both women and romantic scandals, quipped: ‘You don’t have

to worry. I have been married off more than a dozen times by these news channels. So much so that

there aren’t any girls left for me.’ Dhoni fell silent. Then his agent, Yudhajit Dutta eventually called up a

few channels and the news was off the air after sometime. However, no apology was offered by the

offending parties.

While the channels were quick to report rumours, they missed out on the fact that a few months later,

romance was indeed in the air for Indian cricket’s most eligible bachelor. Dhoni met the love of his life

quite accidentally in Kolkata, a city high on romance. The Indian cricket team was in the city to play

Pakistan and both teams were staying at Taj Bengal, the picturesque hotel originally planned by Wajid

Ali Shah, the last nawab of Oudh.

Sakshi Singh Rawat, an intern at Taj Bengal had walked into the fashionable hotel to meet her friend

Yudhajit Dutta, who was coincidentally at that time also Dhoni’s agent. Sakshi, who was a good cook

and an aerobics expert, wanted to tell Dutta that it was the last day of her internship and that she was

thankful for all the help he had extended during her time at the hotel.

She was surprised to see Dhoni, one of India’s most eligible bachelors, standing next to Dutta near the

reception. Dutta does not clarify whether it was a simple case of She came, he saw, she conquered for the

two. ‘I remember distinctly, she did not even talk properly to Dhoni after I introduced them. They

exchanged pleasantries only because their families were known to each other. And if I remember

correctly, they also knew each other,’ says Dutta.

They did. The respective families of Dhoni and Sakshi had known each other for a while. Both

families originally belonged to Uttarakhand. Dhoni and Sakshi had studied together in DAV Shyamali

in Ranchi and their fathers had worked together in MECON in the same city. While Sakshi’s father had

taken voluntary retirement and moved to Dehradun before joining a tea company in Kolkata, Dhoni’s

father had stayed put in Ranchi.

What Dutta did not reveal was this: immediately after Sakshi walked out of the hotel, Dhoni asked

him for her handset number. It seemed the romance, for him at least, started almost instantly.

An incurable romantic, Sakshi had watched Robert Pattinson’s Twilight at least 10 times and enjoyed

seeing Hollywood rom coms and daily soaps. Sitting next to her in her home in Kolkata’s upscale

Alipore area, would be her cocker spaniel, Joey.

Dhoni went back to his cricket after that brief meeting at Taj Bengal and Sakshi went to work for an

NGO involved with street children in Kolkata. It was then that the flow of SMSs started between the

two. The Indian skipper took the lead and it was only after she had received a number of messages that

Sakshi – after confirmation from Dutta – realized that it was Dhoni who was messaging her. It took a

few months of serious wooing on Dhoni’s part before they officially started dating in March 2008.

‘They mostly had to rely on messages and occasional meetings because privacy is a prized possession

for an Indian cricketer and, in this case, it was the Indian cricket captain,’ says ex-Ranji cricketer and

former Bihar Cricket Association (BCA) vice-president Daval Sahai.

There were times when Dhoni would travel to Sakshi’s ancestral home in Dehradun, but he would

never do so alone for fear of being mobbed. There was also the possibility of the media asking him about

his reasons for visiting the city, therefore he took his friend R.P. Singh along. The reporters still caught

up with the two and asked them why they were in Dehradun. ‘I came to visit some relatives, thought it

would be good if Dhoni comes along. So we both travelled,’ replied Singh. The discussion instantly

shifted to cricket and the future of the game. Both Dhoni and Singh heaved a sigh of relief.

Dhoni was aware that any public interaction with Sakshi would only help a handful of photographers

earn some cash and trigger speculative stories across news channels and various dailies. He started

planning his dates in crowds, so that his love story remained well within the confines of his family and

close friends like John Abraham. The Bollywood hunk, who was then dating Bipasha Basu, would often

advise Dhoni on how to handle his relationship, especially in a sensitive country like India. Abraham

and Dhoni shared their passion for high-end motorbikes and would often discuss almost everything

under the sun.

‘The chances of such stories going to the media are less if you are in a crowd. So even if you are with

Sakshi, the best is to stay in a crowd and maintain a distance from each other,’ Abraham reportedly told

the Indian skipper. Dhoni agreed. He had seen how the media had haunted a flashy Yuvraj Singh for

openly mingling with women. While such media attention did not bother Singh – he was Team India’s

Mr. Romantic – Dhoni knew such news would trouble him, impact his image and eventually his

performance. After all, he was the Indian team’s captain and he could not afford to do anything that

would mess up either his game or his personal life. Privacy, for Dhoni, was of utmost importance.

In fact, Dhoni had conveyed his concerns to Sakshi, making her realize the importance of keeping

their relationship out of the media glare. She met Dhoni when she could – at parties, with other friends

and at all times remembering not to spend ‘close moments’ with the Indian skipper. For example, Sakshi

went to Mumbai to attend Dhoni’s birthday bash in 2008. There were quite a few celebrity friends from

the cricketing world as well as Bollywood at the party. Sakshi made it a point not to get too close to

Dhoni to avoid being captured together by the cameramen. In fact, she practically stayed away from him.

Eventually, Dhoni took an hour off from the party and dropped her back to a relative’s place far away.

They both left the party separately and unnoticed. No one suspected anything. The lensmen were only

focused on Dhoni, and Sakshi was happy to be in the clear.

But there were moments when the two met at the oddest of places, and enjoyed each other’s company.

Consider the story told by a Dhoni family insider who would not like to reveal his name for obvious

reasons: According to him, Dhoni cut his long hair short since Sakshi liked it that way and that she

began to attend all his hairstyling sessions. Sakshi was seen with Dhoni on her 21st birthday on 19

November 2009, when they also went for a rickshaw ride in Aurangabad – where Sakshi was a student

at the Institute of Hotel Management (IHM) – and rushed into a consumer electronic store to pick up

an iPhone. The two also met at the premier of Race, starring Bipasha Basu. Basu took special care of

Sakshi and kept her away from pesky reporters who repeatedly asked the actress about her. However, two

Mumbai-based newspapers did link Sakshi’s presence at the function to Dhoni’s sudden visit to the city

and speculated whether something was in the air. But nothing came of it.

The meetings continued for almost one and a half years across the country, much to the happiness of

the two and their respective families. Now, it was time to tie the knot. But, for reasons best known to

him, the Indian skipper backtracked not from marriage itself but from the 2010 wedding. Weighing

heavily on his mind was the 2011 ICC World Cup that India would be hosting along with Bangladesh

and Sri Lanka. Dhoni knew that during that time expectations from hundreds and thousands of

cricket-crazy fans would be at an all-time high.

But both sets of parents were keen that Dhoni should get married before the World Cup and

intervened to influence the star cricketer’s decision. True to the Indian tradition, both parents rushed to

their family astrologers to find out whether it was a perfect match and whether it would be fine for the

two to get married before the 2011 ICC World Cup. The astrologers – realizing their predictions would

make headline news – went on a hyperbole. The astrologers said a lot of things, most of which the

families ignored.

One said the India skipper will have a long-lasting, trouble-free marriage but since the Sun and Mars –

indicators of power and success – were adversely placed at the time of the muhurat, Dhoni’s career graph

post marriage could see more troughs than peaks. Interestingly enough just a year after his wedding,

Dhoni led his team to the ICC World Cup win.

It was declared that Dhoni’s birth chart has a ‘clean’ 7th house and there are no planets in the 8th

house or the 12th house, indicating that his married life should be peaceful, blissful and scandal free.

His wife Sakshi was seen as being emotionally strong and someone who would be a big moral support

to Dhoni. Instantly, the dailies picked it up, much to the discomfort of the Indian captain and his

fiancée.

According to another astrologer, since Dhoni would be marrying during his Shani antardasa, a period

which was to conclude only in May 2012, he would achieve nothing significant as the skipper of the

Indian team after his wedding. This one also made headline news for the channels, some of them even

going to the extent of calling the astrologer to the studios for discussion on their shows that – expectedly

– were a big hit.

A third astrologer went a step further and predicted that not only would Dhoni not win the 2011 ICC

World Cup but he would also step down from captaincy in 2012. He also predicted that the couple

would have their first child between 2013 and 2014 and added that the child would be born with either

Jupiter or Saturn or both in exaltation points, a rare phenomenon, and would go on to rock the world.

Dhoni’s parents disregarded all the predictions and continued to pressurize their son to get married.

Eventually, his parents’ failing health became a catalyst and Dhoni decided to tie the knot in the

beginning of 2010. But there was a condition. The wedding must be conducted super fast and virtually

without any fanfare. Sakshi’s parents agreed to the conditions and she consequently informed her close

friends and family about the big decision, though no one was really sure about the actual date, which

was finalized only 25 days before the wedding was to be solemnized.

Under a shroud of secrecy friends and relatives of both families were told to reach Dehradun. For

what, they asked? For a wedding, they were told. A motley crowd booked its tickets to the faraway town

that is the gateway to the popular hill station Mussoorie. Eventually, Dhoni got engaged to Sakshi in

Dehradun on the night of 3 July 2010 in a ceremony attended only by close friends and family. It was

supposed to be a closely-guarded secret, but information about it was leaked out at the last minute by

one of Sakshi’s friends. The bulk of Team India cricketers were informed on Saturday – post engagement

– that a quick wedding was taking place the following day, Sunday, 4 July 2010.

India erupted with joy at the news of the engagement. Ranchi also joined in the festivities, but with a

heavy heart. Why didn’t the town’s prodigal son even inform his friends about his wedding? ‘Many were

genuinely upset, among them were his childhood friends and those who had been with him for long,’

says Goutam Das, the ESPN Star Sports reporter who received more than 1000 messages on his handset

from people asking him for details of the wedding.

Why him? Well, they mistook him for the other Goutam in Dhoni’s life, his brother-in-law Gautam

Gupta. ‘I spent some decent amount of money responding to those messages, eventually I got tired and

started deleting them,’ laughs Das.

Meanwhile in Dehradun, Dhonis were playing typical hide and seek with the media on the night of

the engagement. Since the news had been leaked there was an obvious frenzy that started building

across India as news channels went berserk. They had no visuals of the engagement, so they showed

whatever old visuals they could. Some even used sketches. Almost all mainline news channels rushed

their outdoor broadcasting vans to Dehradun and channel heads started messaging Dhoni for

permission to shoot the wedding. On the afternoon of 3 July, the day of the engagement, traffic cops in

Dehradun were at sea when it came to handling the huge convoy of outdoor broadcast vans of news

channels. There were an estimated 65 of them, all keen to beam some visuals of the wedding. The

Indian skipper did not respond to the messages that he continued receiving on his mobile, mostly from

the editors keen to get permission to cover the wedding. Dhoni was not interested. He told his friends,

Abraham included, that total secrecy should be maintained and that a fake wedding venue should be

announced to hoodwink the reporters. Everyone laughed but agreed to Dhoni’s game plan.

The wedding ceremony was actually planned at a resort 25 kilometres away from Dehradun. Staff

from the hotel was informed in advance about a VIP wedding and rooms had been booked. Many

thought Rahul Gandhi, the young Congress leader, would visit the city to get married. On 3 July, Dhoni

and his family travelled in specially imported vehicles that drove fast and had tinted glasses. But an

hour after they had arrived at the hotel at around 6 a.m., a bellboy leaked the information – he had seen

Dhoni and a few other cricketers – and the convoy of OB vans started arriving outside the resort. The

engagement, supposed to take place in the hotel that night, was instantly cancelled and the venue

shifted to Bhagirath Resort, a little further away. Attired in a Sherwani, Dhoni made a quiet exit from the

rear entrance of the hotel in the evening. Sakshi’s cousin, Abhilasha Bisht, an IPS officer and a guest at

the wedding, ensured that this time the media did not trail the Indian skipper and his fiancée. The

resort authorities were given strict instructions not to inform the press and told to avoid floral

decorations at the venue. With orders coming from a cop, the hotel officials had no option but to agree.

The next day, 4 July, amidst tight security Dhoni married Sakshi at another resort a little far from

Dehradun. Dhoni was wearing a designer green sherwani while Sakshi wore a red lehenga.The wedding

took place at Vishranthi, a pastoral resort situated 25 kilometres off Dehradun and owned by former

Rajasthan chief minister Vashundhara Raje Scindia.

Guests drove through a narrow four-feet wide road – manned by more than 500 cops – to reach the

500-bigha property. Barriers were erected at several points to keep out snooping journalists. Adding to

the heavy veil of secrecy, the villagers of Kandoli – where the resort was located – also remained tight-

lipped about the wedding, as did the staff of the resort.

The wedding was solemnized by Dharmanand Mithani, who had also conducted the pooja at the

engagement ceremony earlier. A local florist, Charan Das, supplied the flowers for the function while the

wedding outfits and the DJ were flown in from Mumbai. Emerging after the wedding at about 1.30 am,

the priest told bleary-eyed reporters that the marriage ceremony had gone on for three hours and it was

held according to the Kumaoni customs. The resort manager, tired of repeated questioning by the

media, eventually revealed that a 15-course, all vegetarian meal had been served for the guests.

Not too many members of the Indian cricket team could attend the wedding. A select few – R.P.

Singh, Piyush Chawla, Praveen Kumar, and Suresh Raina were there. In fact, one of Dhoni’s closest

friends in the side, Yuvraj Singh, could not attend the wedding and wished Dhoni via a tweet.

Bollywood was conspicuous in its absence; the only two people present from the fraternity were John

Abraham and Farah Khan along with Manoj Tiwari, the Bhojpuri actor. In 2008, Dhoni had shot for a

music video with Rani Tiwari, Manoj’s wife.

Another of Dhoni’s close friends, Amitava Chowdhury, an IPS officer and a top official of Jharkhand

Cricket Association ( JCA) came to Dehradun from Chennai along with BCCI president N. Srinivasan

after learning that the BCCI president would also be attending Dhoni’s wedding.

Sudesh Mahato, Jharkhand’s deputy chief minister and one of the handful of guests who attended

Dhoni’s wedding, says the meeting was fated. ‘It was God’s wish that a simple girl must get married to

Dhoni who – unlike other cricketers – does not lead a flashy lifestyle.’

While everyone was pleased when Dhoni finally tied the knot, there was someone who also breathed a

sigh of relief – southern actress Lakshmi Rai, who had frequently been linked with the cricketer.

‘Whenever I was asked about my relationship with Dhoni, I said we were just friends and he would

announce his engagement or wedding with someone else soon enough and not me. Hope the media

now believes my story,’ she told reporters whom she specifically called to her home in Chennai, post the

wedding. ‘In fact, I knew he was seeing Sakshi, but being a close friend, I had to keep it under wraps,

because he did not wish to talk about it at the time.’

Lakshmi said that such stories are not unusual because cricketer-actress link-ups make for a spicy

story. ‘Not just me, even Asin was linked with Dhoni. But now I hope the media will realize the nature of

my relationship with Dhoni. I’m very happy for him and wish the couple all the very best,’ she told the

media, reminding them how Sakshi’s parents were very upset when newspapers had started linking

Dhoni with actress Deepika Padukone.

Meanwhile, the news channels were stressing as there was no one who was ready to talk to them about

the wedding in Dehradun and Dhoni was refusing to meet with the press. Pushed into a corner, with no

other leads, the media then started picking on friends of Sakshi who lived in Dehradun and urging

them to come to their makeshift studios.

One of Sakshi’s batch mates, Maneka Bajaj, walked into a top English news channel’s studio and

described how she and Sakshi had studied together at Dehradun’s Welham’s School and passed out in

2006. ‘She was fun, friendly and always full of life. We were all in a boarding school. A friendly girl, she

was one of the prettiest girls in school.’

Viewers watched intently as she revealed that she had known of Sakshi’s relationship with Dhoni. ‘I

asked her once about Dhoni and she told me that Mahi was out on tour then. I had also told my family

that Sakshi was dating Mahi. But no one really believed me, including my cook.’

In another studio, another friend of Sakshi, Kanika Puri, recalled how they had taken Hindi and

Maths tuitions together and walked around Dehradun and generally had a good time together.

‘Since both of us were from Kolkata, we used to return home on our holidays together. We would both

take a bus to Delhi and then take a train to Kolkata. On our journey back home we would hardly sleep.

Most of our time was spent chatting with each other. Once, we had also gone for a movie together in the

city. I had last bumped into her in the online chat room. Though I did know that she was dating Dhoni,

I had never confronted her on that. Sakshi is a very humble girl. I don’t think she will change after her

marriage,’ Puri told the channel.

In Ranchi, Dhoni’s fans burst crackers and distributed sweets to celebrate the wedding. There was

general approval that Dhoni had decided to marry a ‘girl-next-door’. ‘We are relieved today; he is

marrying a girl who is just like a girl next door ... three cheers for Dhoni and his life partner,’ Anuj

Kumar, a Dhoni fan told a news channel.

Former players expressed hope that the wedding would act as a good omen for Dhoni’s cricketing

career. ‘I am sure his marriage will spark him to do better at the 2011 World Cup as every step of Dhoni

speaks of conviction and determination. I hope India wins the World Cup for the second time under

Dhoni,’ remarked ex-Ranji cricketer and former Bihar Cricket Association vice-president Daval Sahai.

He had not attended the wedding but that did not bother Sahai, a man whom Dhoni makes it a

point to at the very least speak over phone to whenever the latter is in Ranchi. Sahai said Dhoni’s

performance would double as marriage brings ‘renewed vigour’. ‘Being single is always dangerous, but

Dhoni is relieved now from page-3-type gossip,’ said Om Ranjan Malviya, who was once a practice

partner of the Indian skipper.

An elated Adil Hussain, under whom Dhoni played for Central Coalfields Limited, called reporters to

his home, offered them sweets on behalf of Dhoni, and said he was happy for the Indian captain.

Hussain told reporters that Dhoni always took crucial decisions not only judiciously but also in a timely

manner. ‘He knows what system works for him. He keeps well behind the wickets, and he will keep well

as a husband too. Just wait and see how his marriage brings luck to his game,’ said Hussain, a former

Bihar Ranji captain.

‘Normally marriage heralds a new dawn in everyone’s life. Therefore, the graph of the number one one-

day batsman’s performance will only go up,’ felt Ashok Ghosh, an ex-Ranji player, who had also joined

the celebrations. Former left-arm spinner KVP Rao supported Dhoni’s surprise engagement and then

marriage, saying: ‘The captain knows his field placements and knows how to stump everyone by

surprise. At least now there will be somebody to look after him.’

Now it was time for the Dhonis to return to Ranchi. Knowing the mayhem their arrival would cause in

that small town, the family requested for adequate police protection. Dhoni, who as the Indian cricket

captain, already had special security, had increased protection this time around.

What was on Ranchi’s mind? Everyone wanted to know when will the Dhonis host the wedding

reception?

Dhoni returned with his wife Sakshi to his hometown on 7 July, his birthday. An estimated 3000

people crowded the Birsa Munda airport. Many carried garlands, others carried placards and banners

that read: ‘Happy Wedding, when is the reception, Mahi?’ Another read: ‘Wishing you and aspiring to

have a glimpse of the superhero of Ranchi’.

And the rest hoped Dhoni, like a typical hero, would come out of the flight and wave like Shah Rukh

Khan. They had not liked the star’s hush-hush engagement and marriage.

As it was the star’s birthday, the fans were already celebrating all over Ranchi. Many distributed sweets,

cut giant cakes, set off firecrackers and garlanded huge posters of the cricketer. They were in a mood to

party, they wanted to see Dhoni and of course, his wife, in person.

But Dhoni was distinctly uncomfortable even with the grand reception he had received at the airport.

On his arrival, Dhoni had requested airport authorities if he and his family members could exit through

the cargo gate. That gate, Dhoni was told, was deserted, as the crowds had gathered in front of the main

entrance.

The airport officials agreed and within half an hour, the Indian cricket captain and his family drove

out of the airport from the cargo gate in a Toyota Qualis, followed by police jeeps.

Not to be outdone, the fans immediately followed the convoy. And eventually, there was a virtual

pandemonium at the cricketer’s newly-constructed bungalow at Ranchi’s upmarket Harmu Road. There

were hundreds of people all around his house, many went to the rooftops of surrounding buildings to

get a glimpse of the star cricketer and his new wife.

Dhoni, realizing that something needed to be done, pushed his elder brother Narendra out to handle

the crowd and tell them to disperse because the family was very tired. The ploy did not work and the

fans said they must meet Dhoni before leaving. Narendra tried hard but nothing worked, many now

had started raising slogans. Many wanted to know the date of the wedding reception. Narendra was at a

complete loss.

Sitting inside his living room Dhoni was amused to see his elder brother struggling with the crowd.

He asked Sakshi to accompany him out on to the balcony.

There was pandemonium. Cameras rolled, clicked, many used their handsets to film the couple and

many wept in joy. Sporting a red T-shirt and blue jeans with his wife clad in white salwar suit, Dhoni

waved to the crowd for almost a minute, and then retreated inside.

Standing in the crowd was Paramjit Singh, Dhoni’s friend who had once got him his first sets of bats.

He had now helped Narendra disperse the crowds. Once they had left, Singh looked at the sun and

prayed with folded hands. Earlier, the prayer would always be for his friend. This time Singh had added

one more name: that of Sakshi, the woman who would now take care of his friend for life.

And then, Singh quietly started his long walk back to his shop, shunning limelight, as always.

11

Jharkhand Push:Dhoni is our Boy

Very few have followed the cricketing history of Bihar, and fewer still have chronicled it. However, if you

were to come across the local newspaper columns written by renowned bureaucrat Dr. P.C. Mustafi in the

late 1970s – who earned accolades for his brilliant work in the state’s rural areas – you will quickly come

to the conclusion that the growth of cricket in Bihar is directly linked to the fact that the game

flourished fairly well in the industrial town of Jamshedpur.

As Mustafi writes in his columns – some compilations of his columns are still available in Patna’s old

book-stores – the early days of Bihar cricket were fondly remembered by many largely because of Minoa

Patel’s fearsome deliveries and the mighty boundaries that came easily off KAD Naoroji’s bat. Patel was a

brilliant bowler who always maintained an accurate line and length with devastating results. According

to Mustafi, he was arguably amongst the best in the state and one of the finest from the East Zone.

Similarly, Naoroji was known for his copybook, classic batting style many later associated with Sunil

Gavaskar. ‘His wrist movements would instantly send the ball racing to the boundary ropes. And his big,

high hits were a delight to watch,’ wrote Mustafi.

In those days, the annual cricket fixtures of Calcutta Parsis and Jamshedpur Parsis was routinely held

in Jamshedpur and enjoyed by the sizeable cricket loving community of the town, most of whom were

employees of the Tata companies based there.

The Bihar Cricket Association (BCA) dates back to 1936. It was formed in Jamshedpur with A.M.

Hayman as president, Naoroji and Professor Moin-ul-Huq as vice-presidents and N. Quereshi as

secretary. Initially, the BCA struggled to gain recognition from the rest of the cricket playing states in

India but slowly yet steadily it managed to gain its rightful place on the country’s cricketing map. In

fact, within a year of its formation, the BCA had gained entry into the coveted Ranji Trophy

tournament.

The BCA played its first Ranji match in 1937 against the Cricket Association of Bengal and Assam

(CABAA) at what was then known as Calcutta. No one believed that the side stood a fighting chance,

and were in fact surprised to see BCA manage a first innings lead before losing the match to a far better

side. Calcutta’s widely-circulated newspaper, the Statesman described the BCA team as a trail blazer and

wrote: ‘If nurtured, the team – high on talent – could rise to dizzying heights.’ Members of the CABAA

did not like such high praise for their opponents and quietly encouraged some of their fans to write

nasty letters to the newspaper’s editor.

Being the epicenter of Bihar’s cricket scene, Jamshedpur played host to the state’s first Ranji match at

the Keenan Stadium in 1939-40 against CABAA. The stadium, thanks to the Tatas, had all the facilities

to host top cricket matches but had somehow managed to remain on the backburner of the country’s

cricketing calendar. As a result, not too many all-India competitive cricket matches had been hosted at

Keenan. While this impacted Bihar’s cricket growth, no administrator could take on the mighty cricket

board.

Bihar had to wait till the 23rd of January 1948, to record its first victory when it beat Delhi and

District Cricket Association (DDCA) team at Keenan. DDCA needed to score 32 runs with eight wickets

and a full day left, but – thanks to some superlative performance by the Bihar bowlers – all the wickets

tumbled for 17 runs in less than one hour! Post-match celebrations continued late into the night. In

1959-60, Bihar defeated Bengal to become – for the first time – East Zone champions and entered the

Ranji semi-final but eventually lost to Mysore in the finals.

And during all these years Keenan remained the epicenter of cricket in Bihar, thanks to some serious

backing by the Tatas. The Mumbai-based conglomerate had built Keenan and was largely responsible

for bankrolling the game in the state. Interestingly, there was a faction within the Tata Group that was

keen that the group fund football and repeatedly raised their demand with the management. But

cricket, thanks to its fast growing popularity in Bihar, prevailed and garnered the largest share of sports

investment from the Tatas.

In Jamshedpur Keenan was synonymous with the Tata name. In fact, those visiting the stadium in the

’70s and ’80s, often wondered why the stadium was named Keenan and not after the Tatas, not

realizing that the stadium was named after John Lawrence Keenan, a former general manager of the

Tatas. However, there were those who felt that the stadium should have been called the Tata Grounds

because nothing moved inside or outside the stadium without the permission of the Tatas.

Binod Kumar Singh, a seasoned bureaucrat who is now the resident commissioner in Delhi of

Jharkhand state, which was carved out of Bihar in 2000, with Ranchi as the state capital and

Jamshedpur as its second city – vividly remembers how members of Tata Steel would be feted as they

walked into the stadium to witness a cricket match. The works, recalls Singh, were reserved only for the

Tatas at Keenan. The first ten rows were all for members of India’s largest private sector conglomerate.

The senior Tata officials occupied the first five rows with their special white fabric covered sofas and

standing fans, with waiters serving cold drinks, tea, coffee during the game. And at lunch they were

treated to a scrumptious spread. They were led by the burly J.J. Irani, the managing director of Tata Iron

and Steel Company (TISCO), who would occupy his place of pride with his colleagues in those

specially designated seats in the stadium. In fact, three-fourths of the stadium would be occupied by

Tata employees and their kin. The remaining quarter of the seats, remembers Singh, was for those

travelling from neighbouring states to watch the match.

Singh did not like this favouritism shown to the Tata staff. And there were others like Singh who did

not appreciate it either. Sitting in the back rows of the stadium, Singh and a close friend, Amitabh

Chowdhury, an IPS officer who later went on to shape the JSCA, were saddened by this apparent show

of discrepancy. However, no one had the guts to take on the might of the Tatas.

Cricket in Bihar was played in Jamshedpur alone, with Tata officials dominating the show. There

seemed to be no way out, ostensibly because the Tatas bankrolled bulk of the cricket expenses in Bihar

and there weren’t many who were keen to make the Tatas tighten their purse strings. Cash power is big

power, Singh and Chowdhury reminded themselves even as they routinely sat in faraway seats that

guaranteed only a limited view of the game and the players.

Change was a long while coming. The vice-like grip of the Tatas over Keenan Stadium and BCA

continued for substantial time period. ‘We had no option but to remain silent,’ remembers Singh.

The first ray of hope came after the new state of Jharkhand was formed in 2000 with Jamshedpur in its

fold.

The Cricket Association of Jharkhand (CAJ) was formed almost instantly. But two parallel

associations, the BCA and the CAJ, functioned simultaneously for some time before the former, with its

headquarters at Jamshedpur, was dissolved by the BCCI.

Then came the Jharkhand State Cricket Association ( JSCA) in 2004. Interestingly, it was granted

affiliation the same year and the state was allowed to participate in the Ranji Trophy, overlooking the

rule that a new state association would have to conduct junior tournaments for three years before

getting the affiliation.

Singh and Chowdhury (both senior members of the state bureaucracy) had ensured the birth of the

JSCA with active support from the then czar of Indian cricket, Jagmohan Dalmiya. Kolkata-based

Dalmiya realized that it was an important move by the cricket administrators of Jharkhand to register a

state cricket body. For Dalmiya, the decision by Singh and Chowdhury to set up JSCA meant an

additional vote in his kitty and thus he was more than happy to grant voting rights to JSCA.

The move, as expected, did not go down too well with cricket administrators in the neighbouring

Bihar. But there was little they could do to protest as the body was enmeshed in factional infighting at

the time, with two rival groups trying to stake claim as the original BCA.

Meanwhile, Singh and Chowdhury were gaining ground in the country’s cricket fraternity. They had

an association that was young, legitimate and had voting powers, which means a lot in India. Yet,

things weighed heavily in favour of the Tatas who continued to rule Jamshedpur and within it, the

Keenan stadium. Singh, Chowdhury and other officials of the newly formed JSCA continued to bide

their time for a few years – they were still made to sit in the back rows and were denied any special

service. ‘How long will this step-motherly treatment continue? We are a legitimate body and yet, we get

treated as second-class citizens?’ Singh asked Chowdhury. The latter was quiet. While Chowdhury

agreed with what Singh had to say, the JSCA top brass preferred to shy away from any confrontation.

When back in Ranchi, the two summoned a meeting to discuss a way out. ‘We are newcomers to the

game, and we have not done anything out of the hat, so it’s better to remain quiet,’ said a few members.

No, argued the rest. Why should we act like rank outsiders? We have to make our presence felt and take

Jharkhand cricket to greater heights. The mood in the room had suddenly turned belligerent. Singh and

Chowdhury pacified the members and told them that JSCA could attain greater heights only if the state

produced quality cricketers. ‘It does not matter who runs a stadium and who is sitting in the front row

and whether you all are getting lunch coupons late. We will have to strive hard to create quality

cricketers, and then, launch them on the national scene. Only then people will take us seriously,’

thundered Chowdhury. Everyone present in the room nodded in unison.

It was clear to those who attended the meeting that Singh and Chowdhury wanted to stake claim to

greater recognition only after they had shaped some cricketers in their small association. And for this, it

was important not just to build a stadium in Ranchi, home to JSCA, but to also immediately push

some of the state’s top players towards national reckoning. ‘Look at us. We had nothing to offer, the only

person worth his salt to have played from Bihar was Subrata Banerjee. And that was in the ’90s,’ said

Singh who knew very well that despite support from Dalmiya, it would not be possible for the JSCA to

sell the Banerjee story to gain stature within the BCCI. After all, Banerjee had represented Bihar, not

Jharkhand and that was in 1991-92, almost a decade before Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar. One of

the earliest products of the MRF Pace foundation, Banerjee had created a sensation when he picked up

7 wickets for 18 runs in a 1989-90 Ranji tie against Tripura. From there he went on the 1991-92 tour of

Australia, where he played only in the first innings of the third Test at Sydney and scalped three for 47.

While he was included in the Benson & Hedges World Series that followed the Test series, Banerjee

failed to impress. The selectors still picked him for the next season’s South Africa tour, but once there, he

did not play a single Test and met with modest success in the ODIs and first-class games. He was

dropped immediately thereafter.

Thus, were any top BCCI officials to ask them whether Jharkhand had any players that it was keen to

showcase, the JSCA would not have an answer.

Singh and Chowdhury had been working towards chalking up an interesting plan, the first part of

which revolved around Operation Total Control. No one knows whether the two had the tacit support of

Dalmiya but the duo worked in tandem on their master plan. In fact, those days, it was the buzz in the

offices of JSCA that Ranchi’s Ram and Lakshman (nick names for Singh and Chowdhury) were

plotting a ‘big move’. So what were they planning? The basic idea was to take total control of JSCA,

which was still dominated by forces close to the Tatas. In short, it was time to take the Tatas head on.

Meticulous behind-the-scene planning continued for days, weeks and months before it was time for the

2006 annual elections. Meanwhile, the Tatas were aware of what the new members of JSCA were

contemplating and they got busy drumming up all their resources for what was increasingly beginning

to look like a final showdown.

The JSCA elections took place in the steel city of Bokaro under the watchful eyes of DIG Anil Palta, a

top cop from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Chowdhury, then the IG of Police of

Jharkhand, was one of the main contenders and was faced with none other than the state Home

Minister Sudesh Mahato himself. Mahato was of course backed lock, stock and barrel by the Tatas (read

S. Muthuraman, who had succeeded Irani as the big boss of Tata Steel). Extensive lobbying continued

right until the night before voting was to take place.

The election fever rose on the evening of 13 May 2006, with a fleet of luxury sedans, particularly from

Jamshedpur (presumably sent by the Tatas), rolling into Ranchi. But Singh and Chowdhury were not

worried. The two along with their faction members of the JSCA merely chilled in the hotel rooms they

had booked for their strategy meetings.

Everyone in Ranchi would have to wait till the next evening to see who would control the JSCA: the

home minister, the superboss or the IG, or his subordinate?

A serpentine queue formed from 11 a.m. onwards outside the community hall in Sector II in Ranchi,

the venue of the polling. Many braved blistering heat and dust patiently in order to cast their vote.

Mahato was tense. He had summoned his key associates for an early morning breakfast on 14 May at

the circuit house, the standard hub for all politicians in Ranchi.

Donning his signature cap, the minister managed to slip into the election venue without his

bodyguards.

Both Amitabh Chowdhury and Mahto made a last-ditch attempt to woo the members, standing

about 200 metres away from the main election centre.

Although Tata Steel managing director B. Muthuraman did not turn up, deputy managing director

A.N. Singh arrived by a company flight accompanied by Telcon MD Ranaveer Sinha, senior Jusco officer

U.K. Srivastav and at least two businessmen from Jamshedpur.

Known as supporters of Mahto, CRPF DIG Alok Raj, liquor baron Badal Jaiswal and former Test

player Saba Karim ‘who even questioned the comfort JSCA has offered to it members’, reached the venue

before 11 a.m. to ensure that their votes were not cast.

Ranchi SSP R.K. Mallick arrived at the last minute.

But this time the high voltage support and pressure from the Tatas failed to work its magic and

Mahato lost the election by 250 votes to a triumphant Chowdhury.

From this moment forward, the cricketing scene in Jharkhand underwent a complete facelift, with the

BCCI only too happy to agree to the demands of the newly elected body. Meanwhile, in neighbouring

Bihar, factional feuds and the never-ending litigations coupled with rank apathy of the BCCI began to

take its toll on the state’s cricket. The rise of the JSCA only served to rub salt into the already deeply

wounded BCA.

According to the cricket cognoscenti, Bihar – despite having a rich cricketing tradition was left in

shambles mainly because of internal politics and the constant infighting. The situation worsened to

such a degree that the BCA had troubles sending teams to first-class tournaments, including the Ranji

trophy, for close to a decade.

In fact, it was a very sorry state of affairs as politics totally ruled the game in Bihar. As BCA was

initially headquartered at Jamshedpur, the administration of the association shifted to Jharkhand.

However, because of former Bihar CM Lalu Prasad Yadav’s proximity to Union minister Sharad Pawar,

he was allowed to form BCA in Patna in 2001 with him assuming its presidency. But the BCCI now

withdrew its affiliation to the BCA and officially recognized the Amitabh Chowdhury-led JSCA.

The BCA argued that Bihar was the parent state, and hence it should be allowed to continue with the

BCCI affiliation. The matter, in fact, went to the Supreme Court in September 2006, but there too the

ruling was in favour of Jharkhand. However, the issue of affiliation got a fresh twist when BJP MP and

former Test cricketer Kirti Azad jumped into the fray with his own Association of Bihar Cricket (ABC)

in 2007. In the interregnum, the return of Lalu Prasad as union minister and the election of his cabinet

colleague Sharad Pawar as the BCCI president raised some hope for cricket in the state as the BCCI

offered associate membership to the BCA in 2008. However, the hope was short-lived after the BJP-

JD(U) coalition government in the state cancelled the BCA’s registration for breach of norms, a decision

in which ABC chairman Azad had reportedly played an instrumental role.

Cricket in Bihar was in total chaos. Admitting that the prolonged legal battle and factional feuds had

badly hit the sporting zeal of budding cricketers in the state, Azad blamed the BCCI for the step-

motherly treatment being meted out to the state. ‘If the BCA has been de-recognized, why have other

bodies not been given affiliation by the BCCI for promotion of cricket in Bihar?’ he asked. The BCCI did

not respond. While the controversy over actual affiliation granted by the BCCI to cricket bodies in Bihar

continued unabated, another group of officials from the BCA revolted in 2012 and parted ways to form

Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB) with Shekhar Sinha as chief. Cricket in the state became a casualty

of the politics of Bihar.

Meanwhile, next door in Jharkhand, Chowdhury and Singh knew that this was their time to push the

game to an all time high in the state. It was now or never. They knew that if they did not perform and

the state remained on the margins of national cricket, their rivals would be more than happy to unseat

them in the next elections.

They were lucky: one player, a young and gifted wicketkeeper was already in the headlines with his

brilliant batting and leadership qualities on display. Many in the state loved his style of quick-fire cricket

and ability to take smart, on-the-spot decisions. Newspapers across the country had already started

calling him a rising star, a bright spark. The dailies described him as a man who had in him the ability

to lead the state. The man was none other than Mahendra Singh Dhoni, a bright spark, who was loved

equally by women and men as much for his flowing hair as for his flowing runs.

‘He is our man, we need to back him and ensure that he plays great cricket in the center stage,’

Chowdhury told the JSCA members. Singh and other members of the JSCA were in complete

agreement. ‘If he plays his game, we will have India’s brightest star among us. And then, everyone will

value us and the state’s contribution to Indian cricket,’ added Singh. Every JSCA member in the room

listened with rapt attention.

But it was not going to be an easy job.

India already had two wicketkeepers in Parthiv Patel and Dinesh Karthik. Not only were they fairly

established in the side, they had some solid backing from their respective zones, West and South, both

of which were power centers in the BCCI hierarchy.

To make some headway with their game plan, Singh and Chowdhury met with Yashpal Sharma, a

selector from North Zone and Sambaran Banerjee, an East Zone selector to discuss the possibility of

them backing Dhoni and pushing an agenda of having different wicketkeepers for Test and ODI

formats. After countless late night meetings over coffee and tea, Singh was able to convince both

Banerjee and Sharma that Dhoni should be given his first Test chance. It was in 2005 and the rival team

was neighbouring Sri Lanka.

Dhoni was not a greenhorn. He had debuted for the Bihar team during the 1998-99 domestic season

and was later selected to represent India-A for a tour to Kenya in 2004. Along with Delhi southpaw

Gautam Gambhir, Dhoni had already cracked multiple centuries against the Pakistan-A team in a tri-

nation series in Zimbabwe in March 2004. For Singh and Chowdhury, Dhoni was the obvious man to

be pushed into the national selection. And they did it in style and without failure.

They mailed Dhoni’s track record to the BCCI bosses and continued to argue that the Jharkhand

right-hander should get his due place in the team. Eventually, Dhoni got into the side touring

Bangladesh in 2004 but much to the disappointment of Singh and Chowdhury, he failed to make a

major impact then. His failure left both Singh and Chowdhury extremely worried. The duo again

started presenting their case (read lobbying) to the selectors. The two also met Dalmiya and pleaded

that Dhoni – being the only cricketer from the newly-created JSCA – be granted another chance. ‘Many

do get multiple chances, don’t they? So why not give this cricketer from our state a chance to represent

India again? We are a new organization trying hard to groom talented cricketers,’ the duo implored

BCCI’s powerful selectors before they sat to select the side for the ODI series against the visiting Pakistan

team in December 2004.

The lobbying worked and Dhoni was in contention for the series against Pakistan. ‘Better tell your boy

to crack some good scores; otherwise he will not get another entry. This is his final chance,’ Dalmiya told

both Singh and Chowdhury a few days before the team was selected for the Pakistan series.

Back in Ranchi, the two called Dhoni over and sat him down for a frank chat. ‘It was a meeting that

lasted for three hours. We told him the chance of his getting into the side was high and that he should

not fritter it away, especially at a time when Karthik was batting well. We explained to him how difficult

it was for us to push his case, and the fact that he performed badly in Bangladesh did not help our

cause,’ says Singh. Dhoni listened carefully and then quietly walked out. It seemed to both Singh and

Chowdhury that Dhoni was now determined to crack gold; he was determined to prove his class to

cement his place permanently in the side.

But to do that, he had to first get into the side; he needed to win over the selectors. The selectors were

– luckily for Dhoni – picking players not for the entire series but for individual matches. While, in the

first Test Dhoni scored 8 runs and remained not out after hitting the winning run, Karthik cracked 93

not out in the last Test and once again cemented his side in the Test team, much to the discomfort of

his rival from Ranchi. It became apparent that Dhoni would not be recommended for the ODI series.

A panicky Singh once again went into confabulations with the two selectors. This time Sharma

expressed his inability to help him. Singh then turned to Banerjee, who said that he would try. Singh

felt that if an East Zone selector was pushing for Dhoni’s cause, especially at a time when the captain

(Saurav Ganguly) was from the East Zone, he possibly stood a chance. Push, push, push was the only

word Singh could utter before leaving the room.

The representation, somehow, worked. The selectors dropped Anil Kumble and V.V.S. Laxman from

the squad for the first two ODIs against Pakistan. The selectors also dropped Dinesh Karthik and

Gautam Gambhir, opting instead for Mohammad Kaif, Dinesh Mongia, Murali Kartik, and M.S.

Dhoni. Interestingly, both Kumble and Laxman – regulars in the Test sides – had been struggling to

make it to the ODI team of late. In fact, both had been left out for the ODIs against Bangladesh in

December 2004 as well.

Thus Dhoni made his debut in that series. Though he didn’t get too many opportunities with the bat,

his aggressive batting in the domestic games ensured that he got the nod ahead of Karthik, who kept

wicket in the just-concluded Test series against Pakistan.

During the second match of the 2004 ODI series against Pakistan at Vishakapatnam, Singh got a call

from a slightly anxious Chowdhury. ‘He is opening with Virender Sehwag. Hope he does well,

otherwise, it will be extremely difficult for us to push this fellow,’ said a worried-sounding Chowdhury.

While Singh agreed, he was reluctant to talk because his eyes were fixed on the television. He could do

nothing but watch the match and pray for his protégé.

As the match progressed, Singh’s confidence soared. ‘For some strange reason, I had a feeling that

Dhoni would score a big one this time. I told Amitabh [Chowdhury] that he should not worry. Dhoni

is now on 40 runs and I have a feeling he will score a century. He is focussed,’ Singh told Chowdhury.

Singh was right. It did turn out to be Dhoni’s day. The Ranchi hurricane got into the act right from the

start, making a very good case for opening the innings. Sehwag, in his inimitable style, looked well on

course towards scoring the fastest ODI century by an Indian. In one Shahid Afridi over, he slammed

four boundaries off the first four balls and then nonchalantly took a single off the fifth to prepare for the

next over. But soon, he was sent back to the dressing room when while trying to flick the ball over mid-

wicket, he was caught by Salman Butt who timed his jump well to take a good overhead catch. Sehwag

scored a spellbinding 70 off just 40 balls, inclusive of 12 boundaries and two sixes. The partnership for

the second wicket was an amazing 96 runs in just 10.2 overs at a run-rate of 9.29.

It was now Dhoni’s turn to blaze glory. Initially, he played cautiously looking for singles instead of the

big hits. But once he had Rahul Dravid at the other end, he started going for the big shots once again.

He was not very elegant but had sheer power flowing from his willow, reminding many of a younger

Sehwag. He stroked his way to his first ODI ton off just 88 balls. Thereafter, a fast-tiring Dhoni started to

throw his bat at everything with deadly effect.

Pakistani wicket-keeper Kamran Akmal muddled a stumping chance off Afridi when Dhoni was on

126. Dhoni laughed and two deliveries later, the ball was dispatched over the cover boundary. A wide

followed and then another six and a powerfully struck four straight down the ground. Pakistani

cricketers – especially the bowlers who were rotated time and again by skipper Inzamam Ul Haq – didn’t

know what had hit them. The last four balls of that over had yielded 17 runs.

When Dhoni had scored his first ODI hundred, Singh and Chowdhury – both watching the match in

different cities – almost jumped from their chairs. They were relieved, greatly relieved.

Dhoni eventually got out swinging hard at a Mohammad Hafeez delivery; the shot that had the

height but not the distance was caught well by Shoaib Malik at deep mid-wicket. Dhoni’s score of 148

was the highest score by an Indian against Pakistan, off just 123 balls, with 15 boundaries and four

sixes. His score helped him surpass the earlier record for the highest score of 94 by Sameer Dighe against

the West Indies at Harare in 2001. The duet with Dravid was worth 149.

Interestingly, Singh remembers two magical moments in the course of Dhoni’s innings. And

surprisingly, neither had anything to do with the free-flowing player’s shots. The first was when he

completed his century; the second, when he was finally out.

On both occasions, the cameras panned to the team dressing room, where up on his feet stood

Sehwag, furiously applauding his opening partner’s game. In fact, Sehwag clapped right through as

Dhoni walked into the galleries. And as a young Dhoni walked up to the dressing room, he was grabbed

and hugged by Sehwag, who also slapped him on the back. Dhoni’s smile got wider.

To Singh and Chowdhury, and to the cricket selectors, the signal was clear: here was a new go-to guy

for quick runs who had emerged on India’s cricketing tarmac without a shadow of fear in his heart or

doubt in his mind. Thanks to his batting, India posted a total of 356 for 9 and eventually won the

match.

The cameras remained glued to the dressing room where everyone was in a mad rush to hug Dhoni,

the new star of the team. The lanky Yuvraj Singh, wearing his pads, rushed to lift him. And then the

cameras moved to the pitch because the new batsman had already walked into the ground.

‘He is in the side, he has cemented his place. He played brilliantly. He is the star of Jharkhand. There

will be no one like him. Now, no one will humiliate us anymore. We will walk into any stadium with

pride,’ screamed Singh to Chowdhury after the match at Vishakapatnam got over. This time, it was

Chowdhury’s turn to spring a surprise. The IPS officer, who had worked tirelessly along with Singh to

push Dhoni’s cricket career, remained silent for precisely four seconds. And then he said: ‘I have a feeling

he will re-write the record by the end of this year. He will create yet another record in this series.’

Dhoni did score more runs in another innings. It happened in a faraway Sawai Man Singh Stadium in

Jaipur. That, of course, was another story.

12

It’s my Night, India’s Might: The ICC World Cup

For many of the hundreds of thousands who visit Mumbai every year, the Siddhivinayak temple is

arguably the city’s most important landmark – one that is quintessentially linked to the $20 trillion

business that gets conducted annually in India’s financial capital. The temple, in fact, is as much of a

draw as the city’s two other famous landmarks – the towering Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building

and the Goregaon Film City, home to several of the movies produced by one of the world’s most prolific

film industries.

The temple rules are very strict and are not bent even for the very very important persons (VVIPs) who

happen to call Mumbai home. Occasionally, there are media reports about the state chief minister or the

city’s top film stars asking for special darshan – requests that have never been granted by temple trustees,

according to whom one meets Lord Ganesha at his convenience and not the other way around.

But even the stoic and unbending priests can be star struck. On 31 March 2011 on the eve of the

country’s most important sporting date – the ICC World Cup final that had India in the finals after 28

long years – the temple priests waited with bated breath as they anxiously hoped that two people would

come to the temple looking for blessings from the elephant God. The much awaited and hoped for

visitors were members of India’s cricket team – one of them a global icon and a local Mumbai lad, while

the other, the captain of the Indian team, hailing from the small town of Ranchi.

But the priests were disappointed, as were the scores of reporters from television channels who were

lined up on the streets, along with their outdoor broadcasting vans, near the iconic Taj Mahal hotel,

hoping to catch a glimpse of the two players before they returned to the hotel for the night.

Neither Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar nor Mahendra Singh Dhoni visited the temple before the crucial

ICC World Cup finals against Sri Lanka. They, along with other members of the team – were told not to

leave the hotel in Mumbai’s Colaba area. In fact, some of the players who wished to visit temples were

told to pray in their rooms, if the need be with priests organized from local temples. The BCCI top brass

did not want the team’s concentration levels to be affected at any cost. India, after all, was the host

nation.

There was restricted access to the Taj Mahal Hotel for 48 hours before the start of the match. The

reasons were obvious. Post 26/11, security had been on an all-time high in the city and the police was

already having a nightmarish time in controlling a crowd that was swelling outside the hotel by the

hour. The hotel authorities were swamped with multiple requests from fans, mostly girls, trying to meet

the cricketers. Some brought cakes, some scented candles, some all-the-best letters written in blood, and

yet some others who brought teddy bears with love signs. Each one of them was told to leave everything

at the reception.

Amongst the various shows of affection and encouragement for the team was a group of fans who had

marched all the way from Siddhivinayak, halting and praying on the way at Haaji Ali and a church near

Colaba before reaching the Taj. They were politely told to leave their prayer note with the concierge.

Tired of being stonewalled, some of the fans had gone all the way back from the Taj Hotel to Juhu to

seek out Abhishek Bachchan from his family home and sought his wishes for the final. The guards at

Jalsa were initially reluctant to send a word to Abhishek but once they did, they were very surprised to

see Bachchan Jr agreeing to come out, greet the fans and say a few words, remarking how he found some

distinct similarities between Sachin and his father, both national icons.

Meanwhile, at the Gateway of India, those not keen on cricket but wanting to feed hundreds of

pigeons fluttering around the structure were annoyed. They were told to walk through a metal detector

and then feed the birds. Mumbai – it seemed to many – was nervously perched on a powder keg, which

could explode any minute.

Matters were tense inside the hotel too. The pressure of playing in the ICC World Cup final was taking

a heavy toll on the players. Both Tendulkar and Dhoni were urging their teammates to remain focused

solely on the match and not think of anything else. The team’s coach Gary Kirsten – with his bags

packed and set to return to South Africa after a four-year stint with the Indian national team – was

telling players much the same thing.

Inside their respective rooms, both Tendulkar and Dhoni remained unusually silent.

Tendulkar was thinking back to what former teammate, and now ESPN Star Sports commentator,

Ravi Shastri had said to him a few days ago after India had beaten Pakistan in the semi-finals at Mohali:

‘The pressure on you will be higher than on Dhoni. Indians do not just want the Cup, they want it with

a century from Sachin in Mumbai, his home.’

Shastri, himself a Mumbaikar, had previously warded off some pesky television reporters when he was

asked if he was expecting a century from Tendulkar in the finals. Shastri was firm in his response: ‘If it is

a century, anyone who gets it has to work hard. He cannot buy it off the shelf. And for God’s sake, do not

increase any pressure on the home side. They need to play their natural game. Please do not burden

them with unnecessary pressures.’

Tendulkar, the senior-most player in the team, was all too aware of the tremendous pressure the team

was under. India, the cricketing world’s craziest nation, wanted nothing short of a victory.

Meanwhile, in Dhoni’s room, his handset blinked every five seconds with messages from all across the

country and the world. A bulk of the messages came from his hometown, Ranchi. Despite recognizing

the good intentions behind the messages, Dhoni was livid that his phone number – one that he had

acquired just before the tournament – was so easily accessible to so many.

With do-not-disturb instructions in place, there was no way that the hotel phone in his room would

ring, with the exception of course of calls from teammates who wanted to check on specifics or training

schedules. A restless Dhoni switched between pacing around in his room, watching television and

occasionally looking out of the window at the swirling waves of the Arabian Sea lashing the Colaba

shores. His mind buzzing with thoughts: He had already won one World Cup for T20, would he win

the second one too? Would Mumbai bring him luck the next day? Deep in his reverie, Dhoni almost did

not hear the phone ring. It was well past 8 p.m. as Dhoni walked across the room to pick up the phone

from the cradle.

Who could be calling him at this hour, he wondered? It could be the priest from the temple of Deori

Mata, or it could be his sister, brother-in-law, it could also be the BCCI president, N. Srinivasan, Dhoni

mused before putting the receiver to his ear. The voice on the other side was not familiar. Dhoni – who

had not spoken for over three hours – decided to pursue the conversation. All his earlier guesswork went

for a toss when he realized that the unfamiliar voice belonged to former India Test and ODI player

Vinod Kambli – the cricketer who had started his career with the legendary Tendulkar but eventually

lost his game to a host of reasons that also included marital discord.

The Indian skipper soon realized that Kambli was indeed sobbing. He wanted to say something, but

he could not say it. And then, he abruptly hung up., Dhoni held Kambli in high regard because he had

broken his and Tendulkar’s [yes, this is correct] mega school record single handedly during a school

match in Ranchi and had always wanted to have a word with Indian cricket’s lost wonder boy.

He called again. This time around Kambli had composed himself, but just barely, felt Dhoni. And

then Kambli spoke: ‘Kal ki raat tumhari hogi, honi paregi, Tum jeetogey (Tomorrow’s night must be yours,

it has to be, you will win). You must win the night for India. For me, especially, because I also got a

chance once in the semi-finals of the Reliance World Cup in 1987 before a jam-packed Eden Gardens in

Kolkata but failed. We had everything, the crowds, the support, everything. Except we played badly, I

was not out. I wanted to play but the crowds did not pardon the players for their reckless batting and

bowling. Sri Lanka was all over us. You, you must win.’ Dhoni responded: ‘I will try and God willing,

India will win.’ Assured that Dhoni had taken note of what he had to say, Kambli hung up.

For a few moments, Dhoni stood there speechless and with the receiver still glued to his ear, and then,

as if in a trance, he kept the phone down. Almost instantly, he clasped his face in his palms and

wondered what all went through with him and the team before it entered the finals of the 2011 ICC

World Cup, cricket’s most prestigious trophy. The Indian skipper remembered many things. He

remembered how a crucial match against Australia was won, and then he remembered the semi-finals

where – lucky for the hosts – butter-fingered Pakistani fielders dropped Tendulkar a number of times,

much to the relief of the local fans at Mohali. Dhoni remembered how he kept interacting with his boys

through messages, perking them up throughout the tournament.

It was 10.49 p.m. on 2 April and as Dhoni hit Thisara Perera’s delivery for a six over the point into the

northern stands, 45,000 fans in the sardine-packed newly-renovated Wankhade Stadium erupted in

thunderous joy. With that one shot, Dhoni ensured India’s victory in the ICC World Cup for the second

time.

Celebrations swept the country. Back in the stadium, the sweat-soaked Team India were doused in

champagne and sprayed with confetti. However, champion coach Gary Kirsten wore a look of concern

rather than one of unmitigated joy.

It was time for a historic photo-op but his star pupil, the man who had led the team to victory in the

ICC World Cup after 28 yearning years, was nowhere to be found. TV crew members eventually saw 30-

year-old Mahendra Singh Dhoni, emerging from the dressing room in a sleeveless T-shirt. Some

wondered whether – like the T20 World Cup in South Africa three years ago – he had gifted his T-shirt

to an enthusiastic fan.

Dhoni joined in the festivities but did not utter a word. His face was an oasis of peace in the storm of

madness that was sweeping across India’s cities and towns. He stayed in the background, subtly aloof

and carefully apart, allowing Virat Kohli and Yusuf Pathan to lift cricketing icon Tendulkar on their

shoulders for a short victory lap near the Grand Stand. When someone made the point that he should

be the man held aloft, he quietly pointed at Tendulkar. ‘It is his night.’ And then Dhoni rushed over to

hand a small Tricolour to the Master Blaster. Dhoni saw that Sachin was weeping – a scene that was

repeated several times by broadcasting channels. Dhoni knew he had done the right thing for a man

who had carried Indian cricket on his shoulders for a little over a quarter century. ‘If we do not lift him

on our shoulders tonight, when will we?’ remarked an emotional Virat Kohli to Dhoni. Kohli was right.

More than Dhoni, it was Tendulkar’s night, his moment.

While he was happy to step back and allow others to bask in the glory of this much sought-after

victory, Dhoni had not gotten off to the best of starts in the tournament. As he led India’s assault on the

World Cup, it seemed the once-invincible Dhoni – winner of the first World T20 championship in

2007, captain of the IPL3 and Champions League 2 winning team, Chennai Super Kings and indeed

leader of the world’s topmost Test playing nation – could do no right.

Dhoni had pushed for the inclusion of the untested Piyush Chawla, opted for an out-of-sorts Ashish

Nehra and kept an in-form R. Ashwin out of the side ropes. He headed into the tournament with a

team whose fielding skills were laughable at best and with fitness levels, which according to cricket

pundits all over the world were a matter of joke. His own form was being questioned too – in the eight

matches leading to the final his total score was an unimpressive 150. Astrologers predicted a World Cup

loss and some of his bitter critics – those in the commentary box – were calling him a spent force.

But Dhoni had not been bothered. He knew what was expected from him and his team and what was

needed to deliver it. On the field, Dhoni was neither the cricketer who couldn’t afford his own cricketing

kit 15 years ago nor India’s most valued and richest cricketer, earning a little over 70 crore in

endorsements alone – he was a man of action with victory on his mind.

Much before his history making six on the night of 2 April, Dhoni had led his men through a tough

nine-match journey – often gently calming frayed nerves – to a magnificent and much-longed-for win.

Dhoni knew his team was prone to distractions during the long gaps between each match and he made

sure that he was well connected with his players at all times. Once, he messaged his teammates from the

Ranchi stadium during the closing ceremony of the National Games where he was invited as a chief

guest, checking daily schedules of the players. The messages were not warnings, nor a way of keeping

tabs on the players’ movements, they were in fact simple lines of encouragement. ‘Hope you had your

mandatory dancing class today?’ Dhoni messaged to one, to another, he jokingly said: ‘Orange juice

tastes good in the evening.’ The messages were received by his teammates in good humour, with them

understanding the underlying meanings as well. ‘He was aware of the pressures of the World Cup and

the previous debacle in the subcontinent. He knew what it means to lose a World Cup at home,’ says

Rajiv Shukla, a top BCCI official and now a cabinet minister.

During the tournament, there were many who talked about a growing rift between Dhoni and Yuvraj

Singh. There was a cryptic comment that made its way into the newspaper columns: ‘We play and he

goes to take the trophy’. Who was the source of this statement? Was it a true reflection of the mindset of

some members about the captain? No one knew the answer. But what one saw in the finals was the exact

opposite of the above sentiment. The captain first paired with Gambhir and then with Yuvraj Singh to

seal the innings. By then, Singh had already been named ‘Man of the Tournament’. After Dhoni hit the

winning stroke, an elated Singh rushed, jumped and hugged his captain before breaking down into a

paroxysm of sobbing. And at the mandatory press conference post the match, the two sat together,

holding hands like brothers. ‘Dhoni has magic in his hands, whatever he touches, turns to gold,’ said an

emotional Singh. The captain’s response to this was: ‘Yuvi is king, when he plays, we win.’ Dhoni was

still holding Singh’s hand, reminiscent of the 1983 Prudential Cup victory, post which the then skipper

Kapil Dev held the hand of the legendary Sunil Gavaskar. It was a bonding Kapil wanted with an

integral member of the team with whom he often had serious arguments in the dressing room. But after

a World Cup win, it was time to drop the past and celebrate the future. Dhoni was no different.

Only Dhoni could have done this – lead India to World Cup victory, for only a skipper who had

helped the country win the inaugural T20 World Cup and has helped the side reach and win the finals

of the ICC World Cup could sit and contemplate where it all began. In Dhoni’s case, the journey had

begun in Ranchi over a decade and a half ago, with Paramjit Singh, owner of a sports equipment store,

helping him clear the first hurdle in his sporting life.

Singh, who had played galli cricket with Dhoni in Ranchi’s Jawahar Vidya Mandir School, had spent

weeks persuading the Ludhiana-based Beat All Sports (BAS) to supply his protégé with an annual

quota of bats and cricket gear. Those were the days when both Singh and Dhoni were struggling: one

had not even established his shop and the other had just started to show promise in inter-school

matches where records were rarely kept and where cricket balls, often in short supply, were replaced with

those from tennis courts.

Singh, painstakingly called the BAS bat makers, Sumi and Ramesh Kohli, in faraway Ludhiana,

almost every day. He told them about the Ranchi boy with the potential for a glittering cricketing future

and asked them to sponsor the gear to set him off on a sporting career. Singh’s requests were initially

ignored, but his persistence finally paid off and Dhoni began to play.

Not long after it seemed to Dhoni that India had finally realized his potential. He told his close friends

– some from Bollywood – that he remembered his life in the hills, in Ranchi, without cricket, and with

cricket. He remembered some of the gutsy innings he had played for India. ‘Everything went through

my mind as I walked into my room in the hotel. I remembered many things, many, many things that

happened to me – from childhood till now – it was a strange feeling,’ he told his friends.

In August 2004, playing in Nairobi, a 23-year-old Dhoni savaged a Pakistan-A side and scored

consecutive centuries. Four months later, he made his ODI debut in Chittagong and was run out for a

duck. He finished the three-match series with a tally of a meager 19 runs. Almost a year later, in

December 2005, he made his Test debut in Chennai, this time scoring 30 during a rain-soaked match

against Sri Lanka.

In the four years preceding the ICC World Cup Dhoni’s unflappable calm had grown in direct

proportion to the expectations around him, keeping him just a cut above his excitable teammates and

obsessive fans. Where others used modern game plans and skills from global motivators and career

gurus, he used raw talent laced with a personal style. During the semi-final in Mohali he told three

players – Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, and Harbhajan Singh, all emotional wrecks, to keep their calm in

the high-voltage match against Pakistan that was being watched by the prime ministers of both

countries. While he was talking to the troika, he noticed Virender Sehwag sulking in a corner because

the skipper had not spoken to him. He went up to Sehwag and told him a lot depends on his safe hands

(meaning fielding), instantly reassuring him of his importance in the team.

This pep talk was to pay off: as Harbhajan Singh came in to bowl the 42nd over, Pakistan skipper

Shahid Afridi went for a big hit and Sehwag took a very difficult catch to send Afridi back to the dressing

room. Imran Khan, Pakistan’s legendary cricketer and current politician, called it the turning point of

the semi-finals. ‘Afridi’s departure was a death signal for Pakistan,’ Khan told journalists later.

Dhoni knew his cricket, he followed his heart. He did not require pep-up slogans from motivational

guru Sandy Gordon (Now or Never in the 2003 ICC World Cup campaign and Change the Trend in the

2004 campaign in Down Under), nor would he get excited by high-voltage management speak (the

BCCI offered consultations for the team members with a few marketing gurus and television channel

owners like Prannoy Roy [the last named was an unmitigated disaster because team members asked

him to explain how his Gandhian approach would work in face of a hostile Indian media]). Dhoni

continued to go with his gut – whether it was picking Piyush Chawla for the World Cup (because the

bowler was successful abroad) or persisting with S. Sreesanth in the finals even when the southpaw had

nearly lost India the opening match against Bangladesh with a horrific spell of 5 overs and 55 runs.

‘He is unafraid to take chances, to run the impossible risk and win the impossible gambit,’ teammate

Suresh Raina told a news channel after the victory. Raina, a close member of what is known in Team

India as the Mahi Gang, was referring to the captain’s unerring instinct and steadfast calm. The attitude

helped him in the face of incessant pressure from the selectors, who were often pushing some of their

favourites. ‘No one called him for anything. No one from the board wanted to push their candidates.

Dhoni wanted to be the man in charge, and he was the man in charge,’ says K. Srikkanth. Srikkanth,

then India’s chief selector and a former Indian captain himself was happy to dispel rumours that he was

personally unhappy with Dhoni because he had ignored R. Ashwin, a top Tamil Nadu player with loads

of talent almost through the World Cup. After all, Dhoni told his confidantes, ‘Didn’t Ganguly keep the

legendary Anil Kumble on the ropes for the entire 2003 World Cup in South Africa? So, why can’t I

experiment? Why should I be answerable to everyone?’ ‘The captain knows what to do. Dhoni did what

he felt should be done. That’s all I can say,’ remarked N. Srinivasan, the BCCI president who also found

himself in the gossip columns of the newspapers for resenting Dhoni’s decision to keep Ashwin on the

sidelines during the World Cup.

There are many things that go into making an icon: with determination and success, humility, too, is

very important. Despite having celebrity friends such as actors Bipasha Basu and John Abraham, Dhoni

remains true to Ranchi, continuing to live there in a duplex home whose only fancy attribute is a

swimming pool. He has transformed Ranchi from a traditional hockey town into a burgeoning cricket

centre with over 60 coaching clubs (in 2001, there were only two).

Soon after India won the World Cup, over 60 cameramen camped at Ranchi’s Birsa Munda airport to

receive the elusive Dhoni. The first day, even Jharkhand Chief Minister Arjun Munda, waited for over an

hour listening to countless demands for renaming the airport after Dhoni.

And when Dhoni failed to show up in Ranchi, the crowds went berserk outside his new home

demanding that his parents allow them to worship – in the absence of the man – his bikes and cars.

‘This is an unreasonable demand. Mera beta Ram nahin hai. Jab ayega, aap logo se jaroor milega (My son is

not Lord Ram. When he comes, he will surely meet you),’ Paan Singh, pacified the supporters.

Meanwhile in Delhi, even as the Election Commission was making him the national mascot and the

Indian Air Force chief P.V. Naik was promising him a ride, along with his childhood hero Tendulkar, in a

fighter aircraft, Dhoni’s mind was zoning into the next challenge. The Indian cricket captain had had a

detailed conversation with N. Srinivasan on the fourth edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL)

which was to commence on 8 April in Chennai. ‘He is my Man Friday, a captain in whom I have implicit

trust,’ says Srinivasan.

True to his character, Dhoni led Chennai Super Kings to victory against Mumbai Indians in the

world’s richest cricket tournament and then rather than stay back to party, he was on the first flight

home to Ranchi.

His family insists that Dhoni is at ease in cricket’s world of bling and baubles because of his grounded,

simple upbringing. ‘My brother will never overdo anything. He is humble, has a workman’s ethic and a

clear sense of responsibility. When Jharkhand government offered him a Ph.D, he refused because he

didn’t complete his graduation,’ says Jayanti Gupta, his 36-year-old sister who is a teacher at Dhoni’s

former school in Ranchi’s Shyamali neighbourhood. She says her brother owes his strength to their

mother Devki who encouraged him to play cricket. He calls her after every match. When he is playing,

she prays to Krishna for his success.

Apart from his bikes, her brother has just one fetish – the number seven. He takes his lucky number

very seriously, probably because he was born on the seventh of July 1981. His cricket T-shirt is numbered

7, and he has a diamond locket with that number. All his rides also have the number 007.

Such touchstones help him navigate the high pressure world of top cricket. In 2009, Dhoni was the

subject of rampant criticism for sacking Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid from the CB series in

Australia but was eventually vindicated when India won the Australian triangular event 2-0 for the first

time. ‘I remember when Dhoni dropped those two former captains (Dravid and Ganguly) by arguing

their poor running between the wickets and shoddy fielding was impacting young players of the side. It

was a tough call for a young man but he knew what he was doing. He backed his decision with reason,’

says a selector, requesting anonymity. And when reporters hounded Dhoni at Melbourne over the

sacking of those two former captains, he calmly said: ‘It seems you are more worried than those sacked.’

That’s Dhoni for you. Those who have followed him for long say the Indian captain is making all the

right moves, at times riding on sheer luck. ‘He will have a great game plan for Ashwin as well. They are

part of the same team in IPL,’ says former West Indies skipper Clive Lloyd, adding Dhoni’s ability to grab

the slimmest opportunity is one of the key factors behind his spectacular success.

His brand managers believe Dhoni continues to be too low profile. ‘I was surprised when a bomb

squad checked my suite because Dhoni suddenly decided to come to my room,’ says Harish Thawani,

CEO, Neo Sports. It was during the third ODI between India and England at Mohali on 30 October

2011 when Dhoni wanted to cut a cake for a Neo cameraman, Rajneesh Sharma. Dhoni usually travels

without warning because he tries hard to stay out of the limelight.

He plays the game on its merit, taking what seem like risky decisions with apparent ease. Greater

players than him may well have baulked at giving the untested Joginder Sharma the last over to bowl in

the T20 final against Pakistan in Johannesburg in 2007 and they would certainly not have summoned

a rookie Praveen Kumar to open the bowling in Australia in 2008 – but Dhoni did both, convinced of

his instincts and their talent.

A BCCI insider remembers how selectors repeatedly asked Dhoni whether he was comfortable leading

the side in the inaugural T20 without three top players – Tendulkar, Dravid, and Ganguly. Dravid and

Ganguly were dropped from the side earlier and Tendulkar had excused himself from the side. ‘I play

with what I have, not with what I don’t have,’ was Dhoni’s response.

And after the T20 World Cup win, a young Dhoni had curtly told Shastri: ‘Ravi, let me tell you that

we have proved you and your cricket analysis wrong. We have won.’

Dhoni – Indian cricket’s greatest gambler – had been given the mantle of captaincy by default, when

Indian cricket was at its lowest ebb after the 2007 World Cup disaster. Dhoni had no godfather who

offered him the leadership role – Dravid had Sharad Pawar, Ganguly had Jagmohan Dalmiya, and

Mohammed Azharuddin had Raj Singh Dungarpur. Dhoni may well have been the good boy sent to

the guillotine. But he handled the job well. Each team selection was done on a scientific basis and with

utmost professionalism.

During the 2011 World Cup, he didn’t mince words when he openly told reporters that his main

worry was the side’s fitness which, in turn, would surely impact India’s bowling and fielding. But when

he sensed that his honesty could mean negative headlines for the side, he laughingly said everything is

forgiven as long as the side is winning.

But those close to him say he constantly prodded Kirsten to provide quick-fix solutions for the players’

fitness because he was aware of the pressures of playing the Cup at home. Yuvraj Singh, the all-rounder

who overcame his poor form to win the Man of the Tournament title, was routinely pushed by the

captain not to lose focus. ‘It is your game, your team, your Cup. Just do not lose your concentration,

otherwise you will miss the bus,’ Dhoni told Singh.

‘He will do anything because he does not have an ego,’ says his school coach Keshav Banerjee, 50,

recalling how – in 2005 before heading for Pakistan – Dhoni asked for practice in a shortened pitch. His

coach got tennis balls soaked in water overnight. The idea: he wanted to learn how to handle world-

class bowlers like Shoaib Akhtar.

His uber-cool attitude even when everything around him is crashing helps the cricket captain handle

pressure. When India beat Bangladesh in the opener in Dhaka, he told the coach: ‘Keep the champagne

ready, we will uncork it in Wankhade.’ When India tied with England at Bangalore, he charged his

teammates in the dressing room with some family jokes. After the victory over Australia, he told

everyone to stay put in the hotel, saying the semi-final against Pakistan at Mohali was hovering on his

mind – he also sought advice from some old timers – and when India won in Mohali, he huddled in his

room with some of the key members – Yuvraj, Tendulkar, Raina, Kohli, Harbhajan, and Zaheer –

explaining why it was extremely important to restore credibility among the fans in the finals by winning

at Wankhade. But before he told them anything, he asked the teammates to speak and share what was

on their respective minds. Nothing perhaps marks the shift in Team India more than these two

contrasting images: One is of a boisterous Ganguly waving his shirt like a victory banner from the

balcony of Lord’s after winning the Natwest finals in 2002, and the other is of Dhoni celebrating the

2011 victory by turning his face away from the camera. One was a belligerent announcement of India’s

sudden ascent on the world stage by the entitled princling of a well-to-do Kolkata family. The other was

a more assured declaration of permanent intent: that Team India will have many more moments to

celebrate. As will its Captain Fantastic.

13

A Lone KingIt was 11 a.m. on the morning of 17 December 2012, the last day of the fourth India-versus-England

Test match in the Airtel series at Nagpur’s VCA grounds, and the teams had just finished their first

drinks break of the day, when a twitter buzz swept the stadium: Is D2 out? The men being referred to

were – the by then beleaguered Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his trusted confidant, Team

India’s coach Duncan Fletcher.

A second tweet followed barely ten minutes later: Sachin has played the last Test. This one came from

veteran cricket commentator Richie Benaud all the way from far-flung Adelaide. Adding fuel to the fire

was the Master Blaster’s decision – then going through one of his worst phases – not to field after the

first drinks break. Further grist was added to the rumour mill when Anjali Tendulkar, the physician-wife

of India’s most valued cricketer, suddenly decided to fly down from Mumbai to give her husband

company in Nagpur.

Meanwhile on the field, Virat Kohli – the super striker from Delhi who had cracked a century in the

Nagpur Test was already being pushed for Test captaincy by none other than Sunil Gavaskar – calmly

walked up to the skipper and told him about the tweets and countless Facebook posts that were doing

the rounds. Kohli, claims a Team India insider, was informed by team support staff who had walked

close to the boundary ropes to share the news. Dhoni did not react. He merely said: ‘There will be much

more hell for the three of us. Let’s first finish the match.’

The voices calling for Dhoni’s sacking had first emerged in Kolkata, – encouraged by those close to the

former Indian skipper Saurav Ganguly (read Ashok Malhotra and Arun Lal). They argued for the need

for a fresh face and a fresh approach. But this was instantly silenced by Indian cricket’s all-powerful Big

Boss, N. Srinivasan. By the end of England tour of India the voices became progressively louder until

they reached a crescendo. The Indian skipper had had a poor showing the previous year – winning just

three out of fourteen Tests (six at home and eight abroad). As a result he had to face similar pressures in

the last two series in England and Australia respectively. Such was the pressure on him that Dhoni

remarked to a journalist that if the Test captaincy was taken off his plate, life would be smoother for

him. Sports scribes present in Australia, however, did not ask him whether his sudden remark was

inspired by Tendulkar who had also, despite relinquishing his captaincy a while ago, continued to

remain an integral part of the team. Ironically, it was Tendulkar himself who had pushed for Dhoni to

assume the captaincy just before the team was announced for the 2007 T20 inaugural World Cup in

South Africa after Rahul Dravid had stepped down.

If the calls for his sacking had been loud during the series, with Dhoni now back home, the demand

for his dismissal as the captain was deafening.

K. Srikkanth, who had backed Dhoni to the hilt while he sat in the chief selector’s seat, was now

singing an altogether different tune just days after relinquishing the top job: ‘Let Sachin take his own

call, but it would not be a bad idea to keep Dhoni for the shorter version of the game,’ Srikkanth

commented. And when television news channels hooked him up live for his reactions, he walked out of

show. It happened a number of times on the IBN7 Hindi channel – a part of the TV18 Network – where

anchor Sandeep Chaudhary was all at sea interacting with the former Indian skipper who would not

even utter a word about the current Indian skipper. ‘Say something,’ argued Chaudhary. Srikkanth did

not. Also, Srikkanth was no longer with Chennai Super Kings – Dhoni’s IPL team – having switched his

allegiance to the newly formed Hyderabad IPL team that had taken over the Deccan Chargers. Thus, he

no longer needed to dance to BCCI president N. Srinivasan’s tunes, nor was he required to back the

Indian skipper at all.

No one asked the Chennai-based Srikkanth what had prompted the change of heart, though the

switch in attitude did irk many, especially those who had been critical of the former Indian captain ever

since he was made the chief selector.

‘Someone should ask this person (Srikkanth) why didn’t he himself initiate a change when he was the

chairman of the selection committee?’ asked former skipper Bishan Singh Bedi.

Dhoni was equally, if not more, perturbed than the others.

Previously, when Mohinder Amarnath had bayed for his blood, Dhoni had the selectors on his side,

including Srinivasan – the man with the power to veto any call taken by the selectors. This time around

Srinivasan had already defended Dhoni once. Srinivasan had spoken in Dhoni’s defence against the

vitriolic attack launched by Amarnath, then a selector. The former all-rounder had made his demand

for sacking Dhoni and replacing him with Virender Sehwag public on a television channel. However

since then, like all other BCCI officials, Srinivasan too maintained a stony silence in the face of the

media blitz demanding Dhoni’s scalp. Privately, the BCCI president had turned to his troubleshooters,

which included the Delhi-based image management company Perfect Relations, to bail him (and

Dhoni) out of the crisis. ‘After all, it is cricket. It is a game, not life. It will have ups and down. This man

has got us two World Cups,’ was Srinivasan’s brief to the image builders whom he had summoned to his

fourth-floor India Cements office near Chennai’s Marina Beach for a detailed conversation. Newspaper

editors were flown to Chennai for in-depth interviews with the BCCI president who conveyed his

‘viewpoint’ and ensured it was prominently carried in the publications and aired on television channels.

Very few knew what transpired exactly but it was clear that Dhoni had been told to get the Blue Billion

Express back on the winning track. ‘Only that can save you,’ was Srinivasan’s crystal clear message to

Dhoni.

While Dhoni’s slow, yet steady isolation within the team was becoming apparent to many, it was also

clear that he had Srinivasan’s support. The board president told the selectors that it would be wrong to

sack Dhoni before the crucial Pakistan series that was due to commence in December 2012. At least

three selectors, who were pushing for Gambhir to be anointed as the captain of the side, were told to be

patient with the current skipper.

Meanwhile, Amarnath, who had argued vociferously for Dhoni’s sack and eventually left the selection

committee of his own accord, reportedly under pressure from Srinivasan and Dhoni. ‘I am not going to

reiterate what I did. I asked for a change in the captaincy. And it was not granted. I cannot answer why,’

said Amarnath.

Around the time when Amarnath was venting ire, Dhoni’s critics found yet another reason to lambast

him. The Indian skipper had a serious run in with Prabir Mukherjee, an 82-year-old curator at the Eden

Gardens in Kolkata, after the latter refused to toe Dhoni’s demand for a ‘slow pitch’ for a five-day Test

match between India and England starting in the first week of December 2012. Mukherjee gave Dhoni

the thumbs down and walked out of the ground, refusing to return. Again, Srinivasan had to intervene

and ask the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) president Jagmohan Dalmiya to resolve the crisis by

reining in Mukherjee.

However, across social networks cricketing fans were asking: Did the Indian cricket captain have the

right to order pitches that turned from the start? Majority answered in negative. Dhoni, normally a

darling of the public and the media, had lost some face. The move was also not liked by former selector

Ashok Malhotra, who had made Kolkata his home a few years ago. He told reporters that he had not

liked Dhoni’s stubborn attitude. ‘You will have to be humble, accept defeat and admit there were flaws in

our handling the side. I do not expect the Indian captain to get into a slugfest with a pitch curator,’ said

Malhotra. However, Dhoni did get his way in Mumbai, where India lost, but not in Kolkata or Nagpur.

Burdened by the insurmountable pressure, a sense of loneliness slowly gripped Dhoni. The Indian

captain seemed to have silenced the critics about his own performance with a superlative 99 in the

Nagpur Test but could do nothing about his team’s performance. In private conversations with his

business partner, Arun Pandey, Dhoni had expressed his near-total helplessness against the nationwide

demand for his sack.

In his daily conversations with Srinivasan, Dhoni – who many claim enjoys the BCCI president’s total

confidence – had asked for the instant removal of Gautam Gambhir, blaming the opener for not being a

team player. ‘Murali Vijay is the best person to fill that slot,’ he told Srinivasan.

There were other issues bothering him as well. Dhoni had been upset about the fact that he had no

clarity about Tendulkar’s eventual retirement plans but did not raise it because he was aware of the

status enjoyed by the Master Blaster’s within the board. As the captain of the side he believed he had the

right to know. He also wanted to know whether the board would agree to the immediate induction of

Rohit Sharma and Manoj Tiwari into the side. But this time, Srinivasan explained – in no uncertain

terms – to Dhoni that he had the right to ask about anyone in the side, except the ‘God’ of Indian

cricket. Dhoni got the message loud and clear.

The Indian skipper was aware that things for him were slowly, yet steadily, falling apart. And he was

trying hard to hold the Blue Billion Express together. During the Kolkata match against England in

December 2012, he was horrified to learn that some of the players were calling Johannesburg to speak to

Paddy Upton – Team India’s former mental conditioning coach – to figure out how to overcome

tensions both on and off the field. This was not good news for Dhoni.

Earlier, the team management had ensured that there were three meetings that took place before each

day’s game – the bowlers, the batsmen, and the overall team meeting. Now, BCCI insiders claimed that

the batsmen meeting had – for all practical purposes – died a slow death, the skipper and the coach

rarely attended the bowlers’ meeting and the overall team meeting barely lasted beyond fifteen minutes.

Dhoni was aware of these internal tensions and – claim those close to him – tried his best to stem the

rot, but he no longer enjoyed each player’s unflinching support. The fissures within the team were clear

for everyone to see.

He was also surprised and pained by the vitriolic attack launched by former Indian captain Sunil

Gavaskar right after the Kolkata Test. Gavaskar had strongly criticized Team India for playing a game of

football at the Eden Gardens hours after their loss to England. Saurav Ganguly also supported

Gavaskar’s comments on that football practice. ‘What would make him happy, us weeping about the

loss? We have to go on with life. After all, it is a game, isn’t it?’ was Dhoni’s cryptic response to a panicky

call from a relative in Ranchi.

But this time, the demand for his scalp was refusing to die down. Dhoni genuinely felt isolated. His

confidants, who called him regularly to update him on the media onslaught, called him yet again and

this time what Dhoni heard was just unfathomable. News channels were reporting the death of his dog,

Zara, insinuating that the animal must have died of shame following the master’s pathetic performance

on the field. ‘It was actually bizarre. We had requests from loads of news channels for footage of the dead

dog,’ claimed Sundeep Misra, a sports writer and one of the promoters of Network1, a television software

company operating out of Noida near Delhi.

There was no doubt that Indian cricket’s richest player – whose earnings per hour had been compared

to that of Mukesh Ambani by the Economic Times – was facing unbearable heat from both within and

outside the team. ‘Why is my attitude in question? Can’t I say the batsmen failed us?’ he asked

Tendulkar after England completed a 2-1 series win. The former skipper, also in the docks because of his

poor performance, merely asked Dhoni to keep his calm. ‘Indians are the world’s most passionate cricket

fans. They are high when the team is on a high, wild when the team is on a low. All they need is a win,’

Tendulkar told him as team members packed their kits to leave the hotel.

Dhoni agreed. He also realized that he had not helped himself either. Earlier in the year, he had

deliberately not taken calls from his senior colleague V.V.S. Laxman, who wanted to know from him

whether it was true that the skipper wanted him to resign. Laxman, who like Rahul Dravid is considered

Team India’s Mr. Decent, quietly resigned and made his disgust for the skipper known to some of his

close friends. Then there was Sehwag, who had harbored ambitions about the captaincy and was

pushing the selectors to make him the Test captain. His efforts came to naught when Srinivasan nixed

Amarnath’s demand, saying Sehwag would be better off concentrating on both his batting and his

fitness.

Many saw a Dhoni hand behind it. The Indian captain had earlier talked of poor fielding by some

senior teammates and putting in place a rotation policy that many felt was controversial and –

expectedly – created a rift within the team.

In Brisbane in 2012, Sehwag who was already under fire from Dhoni for being slow and ineffective,

spoke to journalists and said that he didn’t know that fielding abilities had anything to do with the

board’s rotation policy. Many saw this as an apparent dig at Dhoni. A grim-looking Sehwag further

commented that he or any of the other senior players had never been told that their ‘slow fielding’ was

an issue.

‘I did not know what he (Dhoni) has said and what’s going on in media. He told us he wanted to give

a chance to youngsters who had come here and that this could help prepare them to play the next

World Cup. That’s what he told us,’ said Sehwag. After the crushing defeat against Australia in the tri-

series, Dhoni said that the three seniors – Sehwag, Tendulkar, and Gambhir – were not being picked

together for the tri-series and were played in rotation because they were slow and could cost the side at

least 20 extra runs in the ODI.

The day India lost the tri-series game against Australia by 110 runs at the Gabba in Brisbane, Dhoni

said the three – if played together – could impact the fielding. ‘It might happen (the three playing

together, but) it would affect our fielding in a big way, it’s not only these three, there are quite a few other

players who are also slow on the field. If you really add it up, you would have only two or three good

fielders.

‘These fielders are not bad, but on these big fields, they are slightly on the slower side. They would be

exploited once the ball goes to them, the Australians and Sri Lankans would look for those two or three

runs to put pressure on their body. Their throwing and diving needs to be good,’ Dhoni said.

The skipper said fielding in the big grounds of Australia could lead to breakdowns.

‘Batting and bowling is something which has variables but fielding is one department where you can

always score. It keeps the morale of the team up, there is intensity.’

Asked if he would clear the air with Dhoni, Sehwag retorted: ‘Why should I have to talk to him? He is

the captain and leader. If he and the coach think they need to give a break to top order, I am okay, I have

no problem with it.’

The fissures were deepening.

There were other tensions as well. Delhi’s Gautam Gambhir had not liked some of the comments the

skipper had made on his form and his game in the Mumbai Test against England. Gambhir, who had

been through two rocky years and been exposed outside off stump on harder pitches abroad, had scored

43-odd runs in Mumbai – a match England won to square the series – but it appeared that he was keen

to save his wicket and expose tail-enders to the marauding English bowlers.

In sum, the series loss severely exposed Dhoni’s leadership qualities and India’s batting shortcomings

after the retirement of batsmen such as Dravid and Laxman.

‘The easiest thing for me to say right now is “I quit captaincy” and be a part of the side. But that’s like

running away from the responsibility. Of course there are others who will decide. There is BCCI and the

administrative people who also want to look into that (captaincy),’ Dhoni had said after the Kolkata

defeat, in response to a query whether India needs a change in captaincy.

In private, he admitted that his captaincy record of the past two years needed serious introspection.

Over the previous two years India’s winning rate in Tests stood at a poor 33.33 per cent. Of the 22 Tests

played, India had won just seven, lost ten and drawn five.

This, claimed Dhoni’s detractors, were abysmal statistics given that Team India was placed at the top

of the ICC rankings not too long ago. Five of these wins came on home turf. Away from home under

Dhoni, India lost eight of thirteen matches, managing just two wins in the preceding two years.

‘I agree there were many distractions during this series,’ Dhoni told friends. The Indian skipper, whose

habit it is to not read newspapers and watch news television during any series, definitely sounded a little

disturbed. However, despite this his calmness seemed to never leave his side. ‘You have to be thick-

skinned if you wish to be the Indian cricket captain. I do not know what kind of attacking field my

critics are expecting me to place. The team has lost a number of experienced players. The juniors are in a

transition phase. Let us give them the time, and space,’ Dhoni said.

He was not keen to speak to Tendulkar and the ever-rising demand for his retirement, nor was he keen

to talk about his continued tensions with Gambhir, Sehwag and a few others in the side. With some of

his closest friends in Ranchi and Chennai, Dhoni talked about what he thought was an image issue. As

a small-town cricketer, who had risen to fame after steering a band of youngsters to the inaugural ICC

T20 World Cup in South Africa and the ICC World Cup, he felt that he had actually never fitted the

traditional mould of a captain.

Dhoni admitted he was under pressure and that it was, in some ways, also impacting his 200 crore-a-

year cash bag that made him the world’s richest cricketer and pegged his earnings over that of legends

like Wayne Rooney and Usain Bolt. For the record, only 22 advertisers used the Indian cricket captain in

commercials during January-November in 2012. Worse, the number of brands endorsed by him had

already fallen to a low of 28 from a high of 43. He also knew that his brand value could dip to one third

of his current rate if he lost the Test captaincy.

Pandey, his right-hand man and business partner in Rhiti Sports, argued it was the skipper who

cancelled some smaller deals with brands such as the Hindi regional language daily Dainik Bhaskar

and Cello Writing Instruments, but eventually admitted that the pressure of losing a number of Test

matches was indeed impacting Dhoni. ‘Nothing sells like a win. Everything else is bad news for an

impatient advertiser,’ said Pandey.

Agreed Rajeev Shukla, then India’s minister of state for parliamentary affairs and a top BCCI

functionary. ‘Some of the demands for his sacking from former cricketers are just too bizarre. Gavaskar

himself had said in Nagpur that Dhoni was the best captain. And then one century by (Virat) Kohli

changed his impression and now he wants to sack the captain.’

Shukla’s argument notwithstanding, one thing was clear: Dhoni needed to reinvent himself if he

wanted to retain the captaincy in all three forms of cricket and bond with some of his worst adversaries

in the side. Team India, agreed Dhoni, had found some unique ways to be miserable, both on the field

and in the dressing room.

However, a determined Dhoni tried hard to re-bond with his team.

It was in February 2012 that the 30-year-old Indian skipper sat in his $210-a-day Hyatt Regency hotel

room in Perth with the door open. It was an evening of despair because the 2011 ICC World Cup

winning Indian cricket team had lost the third Test to Australia and was down 0-3 in the four Test

series. Two of his teammates gathered the courage to walk into his room, only to find a stone-faced

Dhoni sitting on a sofa close to a television. They asked Dhoni if he needed anything. ‘I need all of you,

and your help, to understand, what is going wrong with the team and why we are in this mess.’ The

players beat a hasty retreat.

The skipper did not react. Wearing Indian cricket’s most valued and troubled cap, Dhoni was trying

hard to rewind his mind to understand how the fissures within the side came to be. He was keenly aware

of the pain that comes with the transformation of a side, this time from the side who won the 2011 ICC

World Cup to the one who would be representing the country in the 2015 World Cup. He knew that

there would be enough churns, rejections and approvals, and those left out in the cold would be

resentful.

He fondly remembered 4 April 2011 when just two days after India had won the ICC World Cup, the

players posed individually holding the glittery ICC Trophy with the majestic Gateway of India as a

backdrop and then walked back to the Taj Mahal hotel for a champagne lunch with friends and

relatives. He also remembered the brand manager from Pepsi, responsible for signing up sports

personalities in India, who walked up to a senior player of the side even as Dhoni waited with his wife

Sakshi for a car to take them to a friend’s place: ‘Hope the Blue Billion Express doesn’t halt because the

World Cup has been won.’ The player smiled in response. But the manager, who will not be named here,

continued talking, recounting similar patterns of cricketing downfalls from the last two decades. The

player, who was clearly not in a hurry, listened patiently. As did Dhoni from a discreet distance, as the

Pepsi official rattled off a story dating back to the mid-’70s when the Indian hockey team – fresh from a

World Cup win in Kuala Lumpur – had a disastrous Olympic campaign the following year. ‘Hope your

boys do not take the England and Australia series too lightly,’ quipped the Pepsi official, before walking

away into the crowds that had gathered outside the hotel.

Dhoni found the entire conversation very amusing – especially as it took place right after the World

Cup win – and recounted every word when he reached his friend’s home. All those present, surprisingly,

agreed with what the Pepsi official had said. There were some who, however, said exactly the opposite.

What’s the harm if complacency sets in the team after a World Cup victory, they argued? ‘It would be

better if you could drop out and also get some of the top players to rest and check out a relatively young

team,’ remarked one. Dhoni merely listened to these opposing viewpoints.

But the predicted disaster did happen. Tired after the World Cup and the IPL that followed

immediately, the team began to show cracks as it headed for the Caribbean islands right after the

England series that followed the 2011 ICC World Cup triumph. The four Test series against England on

the latter’s home turf was nothing short of an unmitigated disaster: England completed a 4-0 series

victory, not only ousting India from Test cricket summit but also savaging the reputations of many of

India’s illustrious players, including that of the legendary Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.

Virtually nothing went right for Dhoni and his boys who, along with the BCCI, bore the brunt of the

media heat for a packed schedule and total lack of preparation.

During the England series, an ESPN cameraperson saw Dhoni walk away alone into the stands after a

post-match press conference at Cardiff. There were a handful of Indian reporters who followed him to

the pavilion. The Indian skipper could have easily hastened his stride and vanished into the night

because his side had just lost the match and the series 0-3, but Dhoni walked slowly and stopped to

speak with the scribes, all this while maintaining his calm.

After all, he had led from the front and his Test series’ tally of 236 runs was the highest across both

teams. Both Suresh Raina (198) and Ravi Bopara (197) trailed the Indian skipper who had also done

some superlative keeping behind the wickets. It seemed to the ESPN cameraperson that Dhoni wanted

to tell the world that he was fully switched on and was capable of facing the biggest challenges. But

somehow, the team kept on losing as if there were a malevolent force working against it, over which the

captain had no control.

Dhoni was troubled, he realized that his boys were tired, dead tired in fact, and that the board should

not have planned a number of tours immediately after the World Cup. But he was not in a position to

argue. According to him, and many in the team, post India’s World Cup victory, the BCCI had an ideal

chance to silence its critics that it was serious about not just garnering the largest chunk – 70 per cent –

of world cricket’s income but also creating a congenial environment for the team to prosper in, especially

in the Tests. But that did not happen.

The Indian skipper lost nine players during the course of the two-month England tour, including

Zaheer Khan during the first Test at Lord’s and Praveen Kumar just ahead of the last ODI at Cardiff.

England was a nightmare for Dhoni. He would ask the team’s trainer every morning about the players’

fitness levels and would be rattled with some bad news or the other. As if Zaheer’s and Praveen’s injuries

were not enough, the team got another jolt when Munaf Patel fell during the course of a game, and

Dhoni’s pool of seamers further dwindled.

The Indian skipper got replacements which included Ravindra Jadeja, Parthiv Patel, and Ajinkya

Rahane – the last two combining well at the top order to offset Tendulkar’s absence. Raina sparkled

throughout, so did level-headed Jadeja and Kohli. Even the veteran Dravid, who fell thrice to Swann,

played a great innings at Cardiff, his last ODI innings. But Dhoni knew it was too much to expect one

department (batting) to completely shoulder the entire team’s responsibility.

The World Cup winners returned home a shattered lot.

Not surprisingly, in India the fans were hopping mad, and the media was scathing. The Times of India

coined an interesting acronym for the world’s richest cricket board, calling it ‘Bombastic, Callous,

Chaotic and Incorrigible’ (BCCI).

Former cricketers – who never fail to seize an opportunity to criticize the board – also joined the band

of critics. ‘The BCCI should have actually given new coach Duncan Fletcher a side that was fighting fit

to take on a buoyant and in-form England. But that did not happen and all they did was to push key

players to go through the IPL barely six days after a World Cup, which is not just physically, but

emotionally draining as well,’ said former cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar. To him, it seemed the BCCI was a

board flush with cash and bereft of control and solely responsible for India’s shameless England

Bummer. The worst criticism came from Mid-Day Mumbai which mourned the whitewash with a mock

obituary that read: ‘R.I.P. Indian Cricket. In affectionate remembrance of Indian Cricket, which died at

the Oval on 22nd August 2011. Deeply lamented by a large circle of 1.2 billion friends and

acquaintances. N.B. – The body will be cremated and the ashes remain at the Oval. Forever.’

Dhoni was tired of the flak but had no answer to give. It was time to prepare for the Test and ODI

series Down Under. And there were enough indications that the former World Cup champions – fresh

and recharged – were waiting to avenge their World Cup defeat at the hands of the visitors.

Perhaps the cricketers, having already lost the Australia Test series 0-3, were thinking of life back

home, more importantly, the auction for the fifth edition of the Indian Premier League, scheduled in

Bengaluru on 4 February 2012. There were reports in the media about how the cricketers were making

queries about their rates and bids to be placed by the IPL team owners. In a country that is considered

home to the T20 cash, IPL earnings were critical for top players even since the cash-rich league had

started in 2008.

In 2011, Dhoni and Sachin Tendulkar had earned 9 crore each from playing the fourth edition of IPL

for Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians respectively, while Gautam Gambhir, who had captained

Kolkata Knight Riders, earned 11 crore. This was almost ten times the amount they would have

earned from other Tests, ODI and T20 tournaments combined. Top players in grade A get an annual

retainer of 1 crore and earn 700,000 per Test, 400,000 per ODI and 200,000 per T20 match. In

2011, some of the top Indian cricketers, played 15 Tests and 40 ODIs on average, earnings an estimated

1.6 crore each. To many in India, it seemed the choice for the players – if they were playing only for

money – was pretty clear.

‘Even the selectors know that the players want to earn maximum in as short a time period as possible.

No one is worried about Test losses,’ says two-time Indian coach Anshuman Gaekwad. According to

former Indian pace bowler Manoj Prabhakar, ‘Everyone wants a slice of IPL. Success in IPL brings loads

of money, success in Test matches only gets you the contract money and match fee.’

They were right in many ways. Ever since the IPL had started, the indifference of the Indian cricketers

towards Test matches had become apparent. Though cricketers have repeatedly refused to engage in the

IPL club versus country debate, the case of Gambhir during the last England series was an eye opener.

Gambhir, who sustained a shoulder injury during the World Cup, went on to hide his injury and play

all 15 matches in IPL4 where he was the costliest purchase by Kolkata Knight Riders at 11 crore. The

southpaw then cited his shoulder injury to drop out of the West Indies tour where he was to captain the

ODI side. He also had to eventually depart England after just two Tests when the injury was aggravated.

Dhoni was also at the centre of this debate. He had earlier stoked the fire by stating that T20 was the

future of cricket, leaving most to wonder whether Indians were at all keen to play the larger version of the

game.

The man, who had scripted India’s success at the inaugural T20 World Cup in 2007 and ICC World

Cup in 2011 to help India become the No. 1 Test team in the world, looked totally isolated in the team

he had once led so valiantly. Troubled by eight successive defeats in Tests (India lost 0-4 in England in

2011 immediately after the World Cup win), disconnected senior players – the ‘creaking gladiators’ who

refuse to retire – and ignored by selectors who didn’t heed his advice, Dhoni went from Captain Cool to

being a clichéd one. It was time for Dhoni to introspect. The problem lay as much within him as it did

with other players and the systems within which they operated.

Before leaving for Australia, Dhoni accompanied by family and a few friends, had visited the Deori

Mata temple to pray for the team’s success. However, it seemed that this time his prayers would go

unanswered. Nearly 40 days later, when Australia pulverised India by an innings and 37 runs to

complete the whitewash in Perth, Dhoni retreated into deep silence and did not speak to anyone for

almost half an hour. Dhoni was reluctant to lead the team to the ground for the prize distribution

ceremony and was eventually persuaded by coach Duncan Fletcher to stop sulking and attend the prize

distribution ceremony.

After the fourth Test loss in Adelaide that followed the Perth whitewash, it seemed he had thrown in

the towel, ‘I need to blame myself. I’m the leader of the side, the main culprit.’ Earlier in the year Dhoni

had said that he may retire from Test cricket if he wanted to play in the 2015 ICC World Cup.

In private conversations with friends, Dhoni repeatedly expressed his frustration with the selectors led

by former Indian skipper Krishnamachari Srikkanth. Despite being close to Srinivasan, the skipper was

unable to convince selectors of a change. ‘I have often told him he should voice his concerns, but I

doubt that he will talk,’ says Arun Pandey. ‘I wonder whether he can put things across so bluntly. No one

speaks his mind in the Indian cricket team,’ argues Santosh Lal, longtime friend and member of the

Jharkhand Ranji team.

Frustrated with this culture of silence, Dhoni started dropping broad hints. On the first day of the first

Test against England in August-September 2011, he un-strapped the wicketkeeping pads and started

bowling after Zaheer Khan strained a hamstring. Khan’s injury had left India with just three specialist

bowlers for the rest of the match. ‘It was risky to have an injury-prone Zaheer in a team that has only

four specialist bowlers,’ said former Indian captain Kapil Dev. ‘Why can’t he speak to the selectors?’

Well one couldn’t talk to the selectors, primarily because they wouldn’t listen. Consider the England

fiasco. Despite Dhoni’s repeated warnings not to include injury-prone cricketers in the squad for almost

a year, the selectors included Zaheer, Yuvraj Singh, Gambhir, Sehwag, and Harbhajan Singh – each of

whom was declared fit when their name was included in the list. However, trouble started almost

immediately after the tour began.

Zaheer was the first to go after the hamstring injury, followed by Gambhir who played just two Tests

and left nursing his old shoulder injury. Sehwag, who batted with cotton buds in his ears, was

eventually diagnosed with sensori-neural hearing loss. More exits followed – that of Yuvraj with a

fractured thumb and Harbhajan with a hamstring injury. Suddenly, it seemed that Test cricket was

certainly not important for Dhoni and rest of the Indian cricketers.

The Indian team for the four-Test series Down Under was chosen in Mumbai on 26 November 2011.

Dhoni tried hard to push for some of his choices to be included, but his efforts came a cropper. The five

selectors – Mohinder Amarnath, Raja Venkat, Narendra Hirwani, Surendra Bhave and chief selector

Srikkanth – were reluctant to remove veteran players V.V.S. Laxman and Rahul Dravid from the side.

Meanwhile, Sachin Tendulkar who was expected to score his 100th century by all selectors was an

automatic choice. Dhoni asked for Tamil Nadu batsman Abhinav Mukund as reserve opener, and

Harbhajan, known for his on-field energy against the Aussies as reserve spinner, but both requests were

turned down as was his demand for a vote in the selection process. The captain felt let down.

Commentator and former Australian skipper Ian Chappell felt that Dhoni was battling a larger issue

by asking for a limited say in selecting the team he was leading: ‘He hasn’t lost it all but he is not the

Dhoni I once admired for his guts. He took some very bold decisions that shook up Indian cricket. He

was a game-changer. Now, he is struggling to rediscover his Midas touch.

His bold moves were replaced by tentative experimentation. Dhoni went with an all-pace attack in

Perth, dropping off-spinner R. Ashwin to accommodate debutant pace bowler Vinay Kumar who was

blasted all over the ground. This, in turn, triggered the one-match ban for Dhoni after India bowled two

overs short. A frontline spinner, if included in the side, could have saved the day for the team. Much of

the blame, along with Dhoni, was to be shared by the new bowling coach, South African Eric Simons.

Head coach Fletcher, who came in after Gary Kirsten’s successful three-year stint, also did not help the

Indian skipper. Fletcher’s way of dealing with low morale is stoic silence. Paddy Upton, the team’s

motivational coach too had left with Kirsten and though Johannesburg-based Mike Horn was keen to

join the side, Dhoni felt a full-time addition was unnecessary. The Indian fielding was dodgy at best but

no one questioned the role of fitness trainer Ramji Srinivasan. The team skipped practice as many as

four times during the Test series. Pictures of them relaxing on the beachfront in Melbourne instead of

sweating it out in training solidified the sense of drift away from the game.

Eight consecutive Test defeats also affected the television rating points (TRPs). The daily ratings for

the first three Tests between India and Australia were 0.89, 0.7 and 0.6 trp respectively, compared to the

England one-day international series in India in October 2011 which stood at nearly 2.

Experts following Team India in Australia were unanimous that there was hardly any camaraderie on

the field, at the nets, or in the hotel. The Indians moved like a disjointed lot, prompting Australian

paper the Courier-Mail to remark that the Indian dressing room is fragmented with lots of ‘old players

with loads of star value in India’. ‘He hardly spoke with us. I often would walk into the nets to help

Australian bowlers and – unlike earlier – Dhoni turned his face away. He was extremely reluctant to talk,’

ESPN commentator Wasim Akram told reporters.

Some openly aligned with Sehwag, thinking that he will soon be made skipper of the Test side. There

had been several rumours to this effect, but Dhoni made no effort to tell the BCCI president that he was

troubled by such news. His attitude during defeats had also been distant. Once known for his flashy

parties, bike runs with cricketing friends and morale boosting SMSs to players in distress, he remained

confined to his hotel room with wife Sakshi during the Australia tour.

Dhoni realized that if such dismal performance persists, cricketers – some of whom command a price

of up to 6-7 crore per annum for a brand – would soon lose their market. Known for his rare ability to

treat triumph and disaster in the same vein, Dhoni took the blame and the responsibility upon himself.

The Indian skipper, despite suffering his seventh consecutive defeat at Perth and failing again with the

bat, was remarkably even-tempered and took responsibility, without being defensive under pressure. ‘I

am the leader of the side; I am the main culprit.’

He made it clear that changes were the need of the hour to charge the World Cup champions. Asked if

he had considered a phase-out of the senior batsmen, Dhoni said, ‘I have not sat and thought over it. It’s

something everybody needs to be a part of – the players and the BCCI. It will be a process rather than

just an event. We will carefully decide what needs to be done in the best interests of the country.’ He

added, ‘I think there is a bit more emphasis right now (from outside) about getting rid of the seniors, but

as I said, it will be a very careful decision. Because of what they have done for the country and the

amount of experience they can share with the youngsters,’ he told reporters at a presser.

He went on to say, ‘You can’t have all the seniors missing out all of a sudden and all the juniors

coming in. We will have to thoughtfully decide the best option. Give a bit of exposure to youngsters

coming in, and at the same time have a fair mix of experienced guys and youngsters.

‘Once they transfer that experience, the job of the youngsters will become slightly easy. You don’t have

to play 100 games to be experienced. If you share whatever questions you have with these experienced

guys, it really helps you gain the knowledge faster.’

Even when he was grilled repeatedly, he stood his ground. On being questioned if asking icons to leave

demanded courage, he said, ‘It’s not about courage. It’s about taking the right decision. For example,

people went after Virat (Kohli) to be dropped and he batted really well. You have to give that span of

time. Especially when you know somebody is really talented, you have to give that extra time to that

particular batsman to keep going on. That’s how great cricketers are made.’

Dhoni suggested that the process of bringing in change would begin after the fourth Test. ‘Maybe the

end of the series will be the right time. We also have to see what the seniors’ thoughts are.’

Asked about reports from India, that quoted BCCI sources saying that V.V.S. Laxman would retire after

the end of the ongoing Test series, Dhoni replied, ‘As of now, there is nothing that I know of officially. I

won’t like to answer something where there is a big “if” and big “but”. I don’t know where this came

from. Unless Laxman tells me, I don’t know whether it’s happening or not happening. I really don’t have

to think about it.’

The news of the rift also troubled Srinivasan. In private conversations, the board president compared

Dhoni’s situation to that of Dravid, who suddenly became an outcast after India’s disastrous World Cup

tour of the Caribbean in 2007. ‘I have heard of some ego issues in the dressing room. I think the media is

more worried than the two players. These two (Dhoni and Sehwag) are competent enough to iron out

their differences, if any,’ said Srinivasan.

Cricket cognoscenti know Dhoni’s no-Test agenda has Srinivasan’s complete backing. The BCCI

president, in fact, had told the South African cricket board in 2010 that it made sense for India to play

more ODIs because of the revenue model. According to former Indian cricketer Bishan Singh Bedi, ‘It

suits the board, it suits everyone in India to back the ODI and T20 agenda because there’s where the

money lies. Test cricket has very few backers. Even sports channels are reluctant to show Tests. Dhoni’s

agenda has no surprises, it’s crystal clear. He wants to play the short version. The money’s there, so is his

heart. And whatever he does, he has Srinivasan’s backing.’

Bedi should know. Early in 2013, when spot-fixing charges enveloped the IPL and three cricketers of

Rajasthan Royals were arrested and sent to Delhi’s Tihar Jail, the Indian cricket captain did not utter a

word.

His silence continued even when Srinivasan’s son-in-law Gurunath Meyippan – the owner of Chennai

Super Kings – was arrested by Mumbai Police and interrogated for links with bookies. He did not

comment even when the newspapers reported how an event management company in which he was a

partner was managing players from the national selection.

‘This is his arrogance because he knows he has the support of the man who rules Indian cricket,’

quipped Amarnath, now holed up in his home in Goa.

Privately, the Indian cricket captain told some of his confidants that he has lost total faith in the

country’s media, especially the cricket writers and news channels.

‘The only way to silence them is by winning the game,’ he told a select gathering in the Indian capital

days before the team left for England for the Champions Trophy in June 2013.

Was he confident of success in England? Did he know he was leading a crackerjack team that would

improve with every match? Did he meet the soothsayers? No one had an answer.

In England, Dhoni remained defiant with the Indian media. He knew Srinivasan was not exactly in

charge – post the spot-fixing mess that had rattled the world’s richest cricket board – but it did not

impact the Indian skipper. At the mandatory pressers, he gave blunt answers and, at times, exhorted the

media to ‘write whatever they could’. At times, he simply walked off, sometimes he sent in a team mate to

answer questions.

It seemed to many in England that Dhoni was waiting to answer his critics.

Perhaps Dhoni knew – in the core of his heart – that all brouhaha would stop if his boys could win

the Champions Trophy in rain-plagued England. And then, he would be able to retain the selectors’

interest in him and with players he wants. Not players like Gambhir, Sehwag, Zaheer, and Harbhajan

whom he weeded out purely on the basis of performance, both at home and abroad. But strangely, by

that same yardstick, Dhoni should have been out of the side long ago. But he had Srinivasan on his

side. Not just cricket, Dhoni’s appointment as a vice-president of the Chennai-based India Cements, a

company owned by the BCCI president, showed his growing clout with the man who continues to call

the shots despite stepping down from the top mantle of BCCI. But Srinivasan eventually returned and

those close to him heaved a sigh of relief. The list included the Indian cricket captain.

Success came on field as well. The Champions Trophy has been won in 2013. Dhoni is back home in

Ranchi. His single focus now is the 2015 ICC World Cup in Australia and this time, he has a team that

swears by him. He has to guarantee success throughout 2014. If that happens, eyeballs and revenues will

grow for the Men in Blue, the world’s richest cricket board will be back on track, and no one will

complain.

About the AuthorA senior journalist, Shantanu Guha Ray has spent nearly three decades in

journalism, having worked with some top publications and television

channels. In 2011, he scooped the Coal Scam, India’s biggest scandal, while

working for India Today. He briefly flirted with sports in ESPN Star Sports, the

world’s biggest sports channel, but followed players than their sports.

Currently with the Vienna-based Central European News, he lives in New Delhi

with his daughter, wife and three dogs.

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