A moment to cherish for an extraordinary leader of men

The Hindu

a day ago

Nearly a month before his 44th birthday (July 7), Mahendra Singh Dhoni received an early gift. On Monday in London, he was inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame, a little less than six years after his last international outing. There was no fairytale exit for the former captain, whose final game for the country ended in unshed tears and bitter disappointment following the semifinal elimination by New Zealand in the 50-over World Cup in Manchester on July 10, 2019. But Dhoni's propensity for detached attachment means he would have put that heartbreak behind him not long after the loss and geared up for the next phase of his life.
Unorthodox, unconventional and effective 🙌
A cricketer beyond numbers and statistics 👏
MS Dhoni is inducted in the ICC Hall of Fame 🥇
More ➡️ https://t.co/oV8mFaBfzepic.twitter.com/AGRzL0aP79 — ICC (@ICC) June 9, 2025
In a world where people measure the currency of their popularity by the number of followers on social media – of whom he has millions – and a constant desire, whether by choice or otherwise, to keep staying in the public eye, Dhoni is a spectacular exception. He is still an enigma to his vast legion of supporters, assiduously refusing to court attention, surfacing in the lead-up to a fresh season of the Indian Premier League and then retreating to relative obscurity, inasmuch as someone of his stature can become obscure, for months on end, happy in his own world of parents, wife, daughter, bikes, dogs…
This isn't a calculated, well-planned formula to ensure that the fans keep wanting more of him, to see more of him. That's how he is wired. That's how he always has been. When he was the captain, the door to his hotel room was open till such time that he was awake. No one needed to ring him up to ascertain if he was free or if they could drop in. It was literally open door, but when he closed it shut late at night, he was oblivious to the world.
No surprise
There is a fascinating story of how, when a former senior functionary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India passed away, the support staff just couldn't get in touch with him even though they were all in the same hotel. His cell phone was switched off, he had put the hotel phone on 'Do not disturb'. By then, Dhoni had retired from Test cricket but he was still the limited-overs captain and had great regard for the administrator who was no more. Out of respect for his skipper and to ensure that tongues didn't wag about (non-existent) differences were they to travel separately to pay their respects, Test captain Virat Kohli waited patiently and accompanied Dhoni in a later flight while some of the senior management staff flew out early in the morning.
Dhoni evokes such emotions, without making an effort to do so. His presence in the Hall of Fame should come as no surprise. After all, he is his country's most successful captain, rising from the hinterlands to establish himself as the ultimate poster boy of Indian cricket even when the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag and Zaheer Khan, among others, were going strong.
Every year for the last five seasons, towards the end of Chennai Super Kings' IPL campaign, speculation reaches fever pitch over Dhoni's imminent retirement. Each year, he has smiled enigmatically, made a few off-hand remarks and allowed the speculation to mount for the next several weeks. It was no different last month when he pithily remarked that he didn't have to make an immediate decision about his future when he had months to do so. Door open, you say?
Dhoni had already played for nearly five seasons since his First Class and List-A debuts for Bihar in 1999-2000 when he travelled with the India-Aside for a triangular series in Nairobi, under Sairaj Bahutule, in August 2004. One afternoon, the phone warbled — a former India fast bowler who was commentating on the tournament from the venue was on the line, almost demanding that one switched on the TV and watched 'this guy, this incredible guy' take the bowling apart. Batting at No. 3 in a league fixture against a Pakistan 'A' side helmed by Misbah-ul-Haq, Dhoni smashed a 122-ball 120 at the Nairobi Gymkhana as India batted first.
Three days later, on a slightly trickier surface with India chasing 235 for victory against the same opponents, he was a lot more measured, guiding the successful chase with an unbeaten 119 off 134 deliveries, the five towering sixes reiterating that he was batting well within himself. His contribution in the final, which India won by six wickets also against Pakistan 'A', was just 15 but Dhoni topped the run-scoring charts with 362 at an average of 72.40 and a strike-rate of 90.15.
"Whenever you played against him, you knew the game was never over until he was out!" 😮‍💨
Cricket greats celebrate MS Dhoni, one of the newest inductees in the ICC Hall of Fame 🤩
📝: https://t.co/oV8mFaBfzepic.twitter.com/118LvCP71Z — ICC (@ICC) June 10, 2025
Four months later, he turned out in India colours for the first time, inauspiciously run out without scoring on his ODI debut in Chattogram. It was ironically coincidental that in his last international innings too, he would be run out, courtesy a fabulous direct hit from the deep from Martin Guptill that practically ensured India's exit at the World Cup. But between those two incidents, Dhoni set the world afire with his astonishing batting and composure in white-ball cricket, with his unbelievably slick hands behind the stumps, with his supreme mastery of captaincy, especially in limited-overs internationals, with the felicity with which he marshalled teams that included a host of not just former captains but also legends of the game like V.V.S. Laxman.
India aren't huge on left-field decisions when it comes to the captaincy of the national side. In modern times, Mohammad Azharuddin was the first to be pulled out of reasonable anonymity to marshall the 'Team of the '90s' by Raj Singh Dungarpur at the start of the first decade of the last millennium. More than a decade and a half later, Dilip Vengsarkar's selection panel identified Dhoni as the man best suited to take India into the future, appointing him captain for the T20 World Cup in 2007 after the triumvirate of Dravid (then the Test and ODI leader), Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly decided to give the tournament a miss.
That squad of 15 included Sehwag, who had already led India, as well as Gautam Gambhir, Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj. Dhoni's ascension took many by surprise and didn't go down well with many others, including some picked to play under him. But the wisdom of the Vengsarkar-led panel's move became evident when, out of the blue, he masterminded a wonderful charge to the title that would inexorably change the landscape of Indian cricket. When Dravid stepped down from the captaincy, Dhoni was made the full-fledged white-ball skipper and was the captain-in-waiting when it came to the five-day version, benefiting immensely from the one-year apprenticeship under the champion that Kumble is.
Dhoni's captaincy career that ran between 2007 and the end of 2016 (he didn't receive the Test captaincy until December 2008 and gave it up in December 2014, when he abruptly retired from the longer format) was a bountiful phase for Indian cricket.
The T20 World Cup triumph was followed in alternate years by India's ascension to the No. 1 spot in Test cricket (December 2009), the 50-over World Cup title run at home (April 2011) and Champions Trophy glory in England (June 2013).
2⃣0⃣0⃣7⃣ ICC World T20 winning captain
2⃣0⃣1⃣1⃣ ICC Cricket World Cup winning captain
2⃣0⃣1⃣3⃣ ICC Champions Trophy winning captain
1️⃣ Led India to the top spot in ICC Test rankings for the first time in 2009 🙌
Congratulations to the legendary former #TeamIndia Captain MS… pic.twitter.com/vVI3U7kQKv — BCCI (@BCCI) June 9, 2025
There was also the small matter of a Test series win in New Zealand in early 2009, India's first victory in that country for 33 years. But Dhoni did give the impression that he was more at home in the demanding, compressed cauldron of limited-overs internationals than the slow burn of Test cricket where he didn't quite have the pace resources for his team to compete consistently outside the sub-continent.
The legend of Dhoni the Finisher grew with time, his insistence on taking the game 'deep' and invariably getting the job done lending a surreal, otherworldly aura to the bruiser. He shed his flowing locks on being entrusted with greater responsibility, perhaps his subtle well of telling himself – he hasn't really bothered too much about sending messages to the world – that it was time for the boy to become a man.
He oversaw some of India's bleakest Test campaigns, marked by successive whitewashes in four-Test overseas series in England (2011) and Australia (2011-12, where he missed the first Test). But he had enough credit points and the confidence of the men who ran Indian cricket to not just survive these misadventures but also come out stronger.
One only has to consider the sea of yellow at every IPL venue for the last several years, no matter where Chennai Super Kings are playing, to grasp the true extent of the love, regard, respect and admiration India's cricket followers have for the one immortalised as 'Thala' in the Tamil Nadu capital. His sense of timing was never more apparent than in 2018 when he spearheaded CSK's fairytale title charge as they returned to the IPL after a two-year suspension. That period perhaps was the only time Dhoni allowed his emotions to overwhelm him in public space. Otherwise, he has been inscrutable and equanimous in the face of victory and defeat, in light of dizzying heights and terrible depths, both of which he has encountered in ample measure.
India's 11th entrant into the hallowed Hall of Fame is in excellent company. He made all the right noises to 'celebrate' his induction, including saying it was something he would 'cherish forever'. He will, yes, just as Indian cricket too will cherish him forever.
A regular Joe with the same fears and apprehensions and doubts and insecurities as anyone else, but an extraordinary performer who has found the fortitude and the wherewithal to overcome the odds and set himself up as an inspiration for millions, especially those from one-time cricketing outposts who could dare to dream that their dreams would come to fruition. Take a bow, MS.