He appeared on the international cricket scene like Samson; his strength seemed to be in his hair but in less than half a decade India’s Captain Cool went against the advice of former Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf and changed his hair style to suit his modelling requirements. Suddenly, a small town boy from Jharkhand turned into a cricket icon setting aside greats like Saurav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid in the popularity chart. Now with eleven Man of the Match Awards in One Day Internationals and the rank of number one ODI batsman in the world, Mahendra Singh Dhoni has come not only to stay but to also leave in future with an indelible mark on the history of the game. He is in fact the miracle man of Indian cricket.

Born on July 7, 1981, in Ranchi, then part of Bihar, Dhoni’s captaincy skills received international recognition with a stamp of class when he was named as the skipper of Wisden’s first ever Dream Test XI team, in 2009. Strangely enough, while most established batsmen have a higher batting average in Test cricket than in One Day Internationals, Mahi as Dhoni is called by his friends, has an average of 50.18 currently in ODIs compared to just 37.73 in Tests. Add to it the fact that Mahi has a strike rate of around 100 in ODIs and every cricket critic will sweat to explain the logic of such a statistics. That is what makes Mahendra Singh click as a skipper; he is simply unconventional.

The cricket world in general and Indian cricket in particular should be grateful to Dhoni’s football coach who sent him to play in a cricket match. Mahi who till then was only a badminton player and a football goal-keeper at the district junior level, demonstrated latent wicket-keeping talents and was the Commando Cricket Club’s immediate choice as their regular wicket-keeper. The rest is cricketing history as the young Dhoni was selected to play in the Vinoo Mankad Trophy for the Under-16 and from there into the Bihar Under-19. Dhoni’s cricketing future was linked to a large extent to Bihar’s performance in the U-19 matches. His outing in the first season was bereft of any kind of glamour. In the next season, that is, 1999-2000, Bihar’s U-19 team made it to the final of the Cooch Behar Trophy. Dhoni made his mark with an impressive 84 to help his team amass a total of 357 against Punjab but Dhoni’s performance paled into insignificance as one single player from the opposition posted an individual score that was one more run than the Bihar total; Yuvraj Singh scored 358 in Punjab’s total of 839. The junior Bihar team was not bearing any good omen for Dhoni and even the East Zone U-19 team for which Dhoni was selected to play, finished last in the CK Nayudu Trophy.

It was the Ranji Trophy that opened the way for Dhoni’s progress. Half centuries and centuries once in a while kept him within the selectors’ scanning radar. Dhoni may have been forgotten as a batsman but his added wicket-keeping skills shrunk his competition to only among the wicket-keepers where his batting skills were an added advantage. In 2003-04, Dhoni got a break when he was selected for the India A team and he put up a performance which could no longer be left unnoticed. The Indian team was already struggling to find a wicket-keeper batsman. Things had to be compromised to such an extent that Rahul Dravid had to fill in the vacancy for quite some time and though in all sincerity, Rahul was doing a creditable job, Mahi finally received a call to play for India in the ODIs against Bangladesh. Though he did not have a memorable start to his ODI career Dhoni built up quickly on the faith reposed in him to displace Ricky Ponting as the number one ODI batsman in less than a year and a half; even though it was for a short while.

Dhoni’s most glorious hour came in 2007 when he was called upon to lead the Indian team at the inaugural T-20 World Cup. Not even the Board of Control for Cricket in India would have ever imagined the final outcome as the underdog inexperienced Indian team set the cricketing world on fire. Suddenly, Mahendra Singh Dhoni seemed to be a cricketing incarnation of Midas with the golden touch. The golden touch seemed to be eternal till the Chennai Super Kings under his leadership failed to overpower Shane Warne’s Rajasthan Royals in the first edition of the Indian Premier League.

Dhoni had to face severe criticism once again for his failure to lead India to victory at the World Cup Twenty 20 in England, this year. Actually, such a criticism was not called for and the consequence was more due to the critics’ emotions than any real cricketing wisdom; the Indian team was never good enough to even reach the finals of the tournament. Performances in the IPL, where a greater number of players are domestic players, made such critics believe that the Indian team was the best in the fray; they were obviously oblivious of the preparations that the other teams had undergone for the occasion. The absence of Virendra Sehwag only made matters worse for India and Dhoni.

India’s recent performance in the West Indies has actually acted as a balm for the grievously hurt Indian fans and suddenly the section of the media that was so critical of Dhoni is trying to find the answers in Dhoni’s astrological chart and how the rain and the toss has been helping him win matches; one wonders why it did not happen in England which is more notorious for rain being the spoil sport in the months of May and June. It is all poor logic since India lost the second ODI against the West Indies where too Dhoni had won the toss but then those are the ills of a large fan following; you have to be ready to face the most illogical logic at times.

Dhoni’s success lies in his objective approach and cool temperament. His batting technique is totally rustic and his running between the wickets seemingly ugly, in fact there is nothing graceful in his batting but then, the consequences are not only impressive but totally remarkable; he hits with all his power and runs with all his might. It is all because the great Indian captain understands the basic elements of the game thoroughly; it is all about runs and wickets and as long as his team members understand that, he is happy with the team. He remains expressionless when collecting the ball to run out a batsman and never revels till a wicket of the opposition has actually fallen. Remaining cool till the objective is achieved is the underlining character of Mahi. No wonder he is known the cricketing world over as India’s ‘Captain Cool’.