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Dhoni : a polarizing persona.


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On his first foreign tour as an India A player to Kenya and Zimbabwe in July 2004, Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s roommate was the Delhi and India opening batsman Aakash Chopra. Having already made his Test debut, Chopra as the senior player, reached out to Dhoni and asked him what his sleeping habits were. “Aakash bhai, don’t worry, I will sleep whenever you switch off the lights and wake up whenever you choose to draw the curtains!” was the unassuming response.

“What about food preferences?” asked Chopra. “I will eat whatever is available,” remarked Dhoni with equal simplicity. On the same tour, Dhoni was the backup wicketkeeper to Dinesh Karthik. During net practice, he would often assist his senior keeper with throw-downs. “But isn’t he your direct competitor?” wondered a team-mate. “No problem, I just like to be involved in the game,” smiled Dhoni. “Look, it was my first India tour and I was just happy to be playing cricket,” Dhoni tells me now.

 

Thirteen years, more than 300 one-day internationals and 90 Tests later, Indian cricket’s most successful captain is still in a happy space in the autumn of his career, this time under the leadership of Virat Kohli. To understand the secret of his longevity, one has to peep into the enigmatic Dhoni mind that remains as inscrutable as ever. At the heart of his success lies an unshaken belief in never getting ahead of himself, of always living in the moment, of staying in a comfort zone without ever fretting too much. “If you have a glass of water in front of you, why do you need anything more to quench your thirst?” is his philosophical approach to life and sport.

When he was captaining India, Dhoni’s USP was his seeming calmness under pressure. Equanimity is a rare quality to possess in the combustible colosseum of modern-day sport, but it is an attitude to life which Dhoni has mastered, right from the days when he was sorting out tickets as a Class 3 railway employee at Kharagpur railway station. Life as a ticket collector wasn’t easy: hundreds of excitable passengers rushing in and out of trains meant being pushed and shoved all the time. And yet, Dhoni insists that he enjoyed the challenge and eventually became rather proficient at the task. So what were his goals when he was a Class 3 railway employee? “The first task was how to become a Class 2 employee! Where I come from in Ranchi, we don’t think too much about the future but choose to take life one step at a time,” he tells me.

 

No Indian cricketer has perhaps had a greater impact on the sport than Dhoni: a management consultancy report that traced the expansion of the market economy into small-town India was described as the Dhoni Effect. And yet, few have stayed as rooted: the shy boy from Ranchi who chose cricket over football in school, who likes nothing better than listening to happy Kishore Kumar songs and riding into the sunset on a bike, someone who is still living his own fairytale without ever getting carried away by his iconic status. After all, when you can deal with screaming passengers at a crowded Kharagpur station, then handling a tense situation on the cricket field is so much simpler.
 

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5 minutes ago, Pollack said:

 Outside ICF, I've hardly found dhoni polarizing. Everyone loves thala. India is a land of worshippers. First Sachin, now Dhoni. Indian public love to make their heroes greater than game itself. It doesn't matter for them if Sachin in his later part of career was selfish and more stats oriented or dhoni who has been sh!T in International t20s for years. All they want is someone to worship. :adore:

credit where due....dhoni revolutionized india's limited overs' cricket with his fitness criteria and quick thinking. but on the other hand, he took india to dark ages in test cricket where he set defensive fields, played underperforming pacers, didn't understood faster bowlers and was overly dependent on spinners ......undid what ganguly had done for indian cricket by his aggressive captaincy overseas.

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21 minutes ago, LORD_analyst said:

On his first foreign tour as an India A player to Kenya and Zimbabwe in July 2004, Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s roommate was the Delhi and India opening batsman Aakash Chopra. Having already made his Test debut, Chopra as the senior player, reached out to Dhoni and asked him what his sleeping habits were. “Aakash bhai, don’t worry, I will sleep whenever you switch off the lights and wake up whenever you choose to draw the curtains!” was the unassuming response.

“What about food preferences?” asked Chopra. “I will eat whatever is available,” remarked Dhoni with equal simplicity. On the same tour, Dhoni was the backup wicketkeeper to Dinesh Karthik. During net practice, he would often assist his senior keeper with throw-downs. “But isn’t he your direct competitor?” wondered a team-mate. “No problem, I just like to be involved in the game,” smiled Dhoni. “Look, it was my first India tour and I was just happy to be playing cricket,” Dhoni tells me now.

 

Thirteen years, more than 300 one-day internationals and 90 Tests later, Indian cricket’s most successful captain is still in a happy space in the autumn of his career, this time under the leadership of Virat Kohli. To understand the secret of his longevity, one has to peep into the enigmatic Dhoni mind that remains as inscrutable as ever. At the heart of his success lies an unshaken belief in never getting ahead of himself, of always living in the moment, of staying in a comfort zone without ever fretting too much. “If you have a glass of water in front of you, why do you need anything more to quench your thirst?” is his philosophical approach to life and sport.

When he was captaining India, Dhoni’s USP was his seeming calmness under pressure. Equanimity is a rare quality to possess in the combustible colosseum of modern-day sport, but it is an attitude to life which Dhoni has mastered, right from the days when he was sorting out tickets as a Class 3 railway employee at Kharagpur railway station. Life as a ticket collector wasn’t easy: hundreds of excitable passengers rushing in and out of trains meant being pushed and shoved all the time. And yet, Dhoni insists that he enjoyed the challenge and eventually became rather proficient at the task. So what were his goals when he was a Class 3 railway employee? “The first task was how to become a Class 2 employee! Where I come from in Ranchi, we don’t think too much about the future but choose to take life one step at a time,” he tells me.

 

No Indian cricketer has perhaps had a greater impact on the sport than Dhoni: a management consultancy report that traced the expansion of the market economy into small-town India was described as the Dhoni Effect. And yet, few have stayed as rooted: the shy boy from Ranchi who chose cricket over football in school, who likes nothing better than listening to happy Kishore Kumar songs and riding into the sunset on a bike, someone who is still living his own fairytale without ever getting carried away by his iconic status. After all, when you can deal with screaming passengers at a crowded Kharagpur station, then handling a tense situation on the cricket field is so much simpler.
 

Cheers :hatsoff:

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16 minutes ago, Pollack said:

 Outside ICF, I've hardly found dhoni polarizing. Everyone loves thala. India is a land of worshippers. First Sachin, now Dhoni. Indian public love to make their heroes greater than game itself. It doesn't matter for them if Sachin in his later part of career was selfish and more stats oriented or dhoni who has been sh!T in International t20s for years. All they want is someone to worship. :adore:

Did you put the bolded part in to get some chuski likes? :biggrin:

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Dhoni is a very defensive captain: Mark Waugh

Unimpressed with Mahendra Singh Dhoni's leadership skills, former Australia batsman Mark Waugh termed the Indian as a "defensive captain", who just sits back and wait for the opposition to make mistakes.

 

 

"The tactics are right out there, very defensive. Dhoni is a very defensive captain. I have watched him a lot and he sits back and tries to see the opposition make mistakes.

"They've really got to change their attitude. They're pretty good at home but away from home they probably should be ranked about eighth," Waugh was quoted as saying by the foxsports.com.au.

 

Another of my observation is Dhoni's leadership, which has been a complete contrast to his counterpart Michael Clarke. Dhoni has been just too negative, defensive and there has been dearth of ideas. His own poor performances have added to the whole catastrophe while Clarke has been very impressive. He has backed his players, innovated, slogged it out in the middle and most importantly learned from his mistakes.

 

 

Former Australian cricketer Mark Waugh criticised Indian captain MS Dhoni‘s captaincy skills. An unimpressed Mark Waugh termed Dhoni as a “rudderless” and “confused” captain in his latest column. Mark, who is also the younger brother of former Australian captain Steve Waugh, called Dhoni the “most disappointing captain” India has ever had. The younger Waugh believes that Sourav Ganguly is “by far the best Indian captain”.

“Out of all Indian captains I have seen or played against, I would go to an extent saying that MS Dhoni has been the most disappointing. Indian skippers have always been defensive especially when compared to their Australian counterparts, but still they haven’t been looked as rudderless as Dhoni,” Waugh wrote.

Talking about other Indian captains, Waugh wrote, “Mohammed Azharuddin was a smart skipper, while Tendulkar always led by example. Sourav Ganguly was by far the best Indian skipper and his positive leadership made a huge difference in the 2001 tour and later when Indians toured here in 2003-04. Captaincy is always not just about winning matches, but also about how you approach a game and manage the team. Ganguly did that pretty well.”

 

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39 minutes ago, Pollack said:

Nope. One of them just keep troll voting me. Zero f given. :biggrin:. I dislike CSK and chuskis. :phehe:

 

 

43 minutes ago, kira said:

Did you put the bolded part in to get some chuski likes? :biggrin:

 

39 minutes ago, Pollack said:

Nope. One of them just keep troll voting me. Zero f given. :biggrin:. I dislike CSK and chuskis. :phehe:

 

What is this? 

 

Dumb ducks keep that tripe in Ipl section don't pollute the grown up section with that.

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I understand fans worship him. But lot of former players who have nothing to gain by praising him worship him too. Michael Vaughan a big fan. Also players hand out generous complement and media also jump on any of his moves that actually work. 

https://www.news18.com/cricketnext/news/ipl-2018-ms-dhoni-behind-shane-watsons-success-in-ipl-final-1764347.html

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2 minutes ago, vvvslaxman said:

I understand fans worship him. But lot of former players who have nothing to gain by praising him worship him too. Michael Vaughan a big fan. Also players hand out generous complement and media also jump on any of his moves that actually work. 

https://www.news18.com/cricketnext/news/ipl-2018-ms-dhoni-behind-shane-watsons-success-in-ipl-final-1764347.html

lungi fans and indian diaspora on twitter will eat them alive ,if he doesn't praise dhoni ...moreover, most of indians love white validation....a piece of 'tareef' from foreign cricketers , does a word of good to indians.

Edited by LORD_analyst
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1 hour ago, LORD_analyst said:

lungi fans and indian diaspora on twitter will eat them alive ,if he doesn't praise dhoni ...moreover, most of indians love white validation....a piece of 'tareef' from foreign cricketers , does a word of good to indians.

Not just white. West INdian players, Former Indian players. Let me list out the players who have talked against Dhoni. 1) Mohinder 2) Vengsarkar anyone else? 

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The problem lies with the selectors n BCCI, why was he still the test captain n even in the test side after destroying our test cricket, selectors questioning him was fired but Dhoni

He was a fantastic ODI player but his style of cricket n method also his skills have gone , he should have been kicked outta the odi n t20 side as well.

Yes if he was someone like Dravid or Laxman and a true sportsperson he would've retired but then when he can get all the money in IPL it is tempting to drag on even if your batting has become a joke and your attitude selfish n self preservation.

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