Why my respect for MS Dhoni grew manifold — after he played his last match
'Thanks a lot for ur love and support throughout.from 1929 hrs consider me as Retired'
It was around 19:42 hours on Saturday that I first came across this message. I don’t follow MS Dhoni on Instagram and so only after a friend brought it to my notice did I come across this cryptic post. I, for one, initially, did not take the post seriously and thought it was a badly-executed gag. But soon I realized, after news channels and publications started reporting the story, that this was real, this was it; this was the post that was going to break the internet. And it did.
“Oh he got one over every single one of us, didn't’ he?” was the first thought that struck my mind. He did. He caught every single fan, journalist, and perhaps even teammate, off guard with his announcement which came at a time that no one quite expected. You can almost picture the moment before he hit enter: him sitting on a couch with his training attire on, giving a waggish grin, knowing very well that he was going to send the entire world into meltdown. For all we know, he could have logged out of Insta and switched off his phone after posting the video and went for a jog or something.
It wasn’t until a few months ago that I took a step back, sat down and gave thought to MS Dhoni the person. He made his international debut when I was in fourth grade and called it quits 16 years later, in my first year as a cricket writer. That is a lot of time, and in this period I thought about MS Dhoni the person just once. Whether it was due to me being busy with my life, due to my mind not wandering into such thoughts or due to me simply not being a big fan of his I don’t know. But my first observation, from what I had interpreted from his post 2019 WC-hiatus, was that he’d already made his mind up and no one could do anything to change that. On August 15th, he proved me right.
More than MS Dhoni the cricketer, or MS Dhoni the person during his international days, it is MS Dhoni the human during his sabbatical which has made me admire him. “He doesn’t give two f**** about anyone” is a phrase usually thrown around to describe and justify brattish behaviour of narcissistic actors and sportsmen, but Dhoni, post the 2019 World Cup, has added a whole new dimension to those seven words through his unalloyedly good conduct. Yes, he didn’t give a f***, but only because he cared - not about his image or his reputation, but about himself and his family.
In a world where people don’t think twice before ingratiating themselves with bandits and dictators for their own selfish needs, in a world where people find the need to say the right things to show themselves in good light, and in a world where virtue signalling is put on a pedestal, Dhoni normalized silence. And, by doing so, he ensured that his 15-word retirement note resonated across the entire internet more powerfully than the words of all his critics and former teammates who’d been rambling non-stop about his future ever since he last took to a cricket field.
All journalists, myself included, might spend the rest of the week - and more - glorifying and celebrating Dhoni’s career but the fact remains that he handed them an ignominious ‘L’ when they least saw it coming. Dhoni issued the ultimate ‘eff you’ to all journalists who thought they knew him, who thought they could predict his next step, only to realize that they were the clowns all this while. Interviews from agents, friends, family friends, close friends and teammates did no good for such was Dhoni’s calculated strike that every publication had to scramble to retrieve the “MS Dhoni announces retirement” news piece and the “MS Dhoni tribute” features they’d written back in January. People might have decoded MS Dhoni the cricketer successfully, but his retirement message was a reminder - or rather a warning - for them to not waste their energy trying to get to know the man.
The quality of MS Dhoni the human being unapologetically himself - off the field - also rubbed off on MS Dhoni the cricketer, during his playing days. Dhoni was always a man of few words, said what he wanted to say, revealed what he wanted to reveal, never put on a mask to deceive the public and did what he wanted to do. He knew his limitations, embraced his imperfection - Dhoni never really worked hard to make radical changes to his red-ball game, both in terms of batting and captaincy, for he knew he was not wired for it - and trusted his gut over everything.
Rohit Sharma, not so long ago, spoke about the need for cricketers to create a shield in order to mute outside noise, but looking at Dhoni’s career, you get a feeling that he was born with noise-cancelling headphones attached to his ears which allowed him to listen to himself and himself only. Perhaps that is the reason why he, unlike the rest of us, is not a slave to the insanity of the society and the world we currently find ourselves in.
In a world full of attention-seeking junkies, MS Dhoni is an anomaly: he unironically embraces sobriety and loves living under the shadow. The Australian fan residing in me might have stopped me from truly basking in Dhoni’s glory during his playing days, but these past 406 days have taught me that there’s so much more to the man than just a cricket bat. There resides a side of him that is too pure to be exposed to this world - and I’m glad it will remain a mystery.
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