MS Dhoni will continue to be Captain For Life for CSK fans
He’ll still be the leader when he walks out onto the field, the man who pulls the strings from behind the stumps.
MS Dhoni renounces his responsibilities in stages, much like a man approaching the vanaprastha. He stepped head as captain of the Chennai Super Kings seven years after he retired from Test cricket and two years after he renounced his national colors for good.
By definition, he is still a player, a wicket-keeper batsman. Only that he will always be the captain of his devout legions. In the mild sea-breeze-infused IPL summer evenings at Chepauk, the banner—MS Dhoni: Captain For Life—used to be waved frantically. Even during CSK’s two wilderness years, Dhoni-maniacs would affix that banner to the walls of the MA Chidambaram Stadium and fervently chant his name, even as he reluctantly wrapped the purple jersey of Rising Pune Supergiant. When he returned, they blew crackers, garlanded his giant cut-out, and yelled his name so loudly that the vast ocean waves that hugged the stadium seemed to carry the echoes to distant shores.
Dhoni’s love seemed to be unconditional.
However, the ultimate truth is that a sportsman is adored because he is successful. Even in the most absolute of attachments, conditions creep in.
In this format, no other man-to-man leader has led men as comfortably or successfully as captain. He established the tone, tempo, and template for captain in the shortest format, which did not exist when he began playing cricket. Still, it is difficult to codify his captaincy streaks into a manual, or even a blueprint, for T20 success. Dhoni was a one-person manual.
At the start of his CSK career, he was risk-taking and daring, even playing left-field, similar to his pre-captaincy batting. But none of those strategies were based on a gamble or a whim, nor were they the result of an instinct or impulse. Instead, he weighed the outcome forensically before making a decision. He was much more meditative and thoughtful; it was just his genius.
