Gwalior, 24th Feb 2010! People who walked into the Roop Singh Stadium were walking into history. As India’s innings progressed, Sachin Tendulkar looked in sublime touch and his batting looked like romance; beautiful, breezy & brave. On this chosen day, Cricket witnessed the first-ever Double Hundred in ODIs from the bat of the Sachin Tendulkar. After the early dismissal of Virender Sehwag, Dinesh Kartik weaved a partnership with Sachin and later on Yusuf Pathan and MS Dhoni played helping hands to the master.

Sachin – the Butcher

Sachin Tendulkar announced his arrival when he went after Abdul Qadir for four sixes in an over in 1989. The match might have been a friendly one but entire Pakistan knew something had hit them and will rock them hard over the coming years. The conventional functioning of Indian Cricket had kept Sachin Tendulkar as a middle-order ODI batsman till 1994 when he requested Mohammad Azharuddin, the then skipper, for a chance to open against New Zealand. Away in the foreign land, India was looking for a substitute for the injured NS Sidhu. The permission was granted and the 82 off 47 balls knock at Napier had unleashed the game-changer in ODIs.

Sachin Tendulkar didn’t look back post that and he went on to become the most prolific ODI opener in the history of World Cricket. India’s quest had given the World, its best batsman. Players emerged and players kept getting compared but the parameter was unshakeable – Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. His journey from that innings in Napier to World Cup 1996 to the Desert Storm in Sharjah in 1998 to World Cup 2003 to World Cup 2011 registered nothing but sheer brutality on the bowlers around the world with a few impeccable shift in gears here and there.

MS – the Butcher

Vishakhapatnam, 2005! India was up against their nemesis, Pakistan. India lost Sachin early. Unlike 1994, when Sachin had to ask Azharuddin for the opener’s spot, MS Dhoni didn’t have to speak for promotion up in the order. Captain Ganguly was known to pick the nerves well and he promoted the batsman in Dhoni at No.3. MS Dhoni grabbed the opportunity with both hands to unleash the butcher in his batting that put him in his own league, way ahead of his contemporaries, Parthiv Patel and Dinesh Kartik. During that 148-run knock, he even made the destructive Virender Sehwag look calmer. From that day, India’s pack of cards in the middle order also had an ace. Alongside Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni finished games in their own inimitable style. The power game was never India’s forte till the duo arrived. This eased the pressure off the top order. Indian Cricket looked all that more confident now.

After the Chappell era, when MS took over captaincy, he embraced the responsibility like a duck takes to water. His butchery didn’t subside, rather he could decide to use it timely by deciding the order himself. Through the pages of ODI, T20I & IPL, one can clearly notice how his carnage snatched away matches from the safe pockets of the opponents. It was no longer the case that if the top-order is removed, opponents would overcome everything post that. India under Dhoni were a calm, reassured bunch. Self-belief is MS’s biggest gift to Indian cricket. MS Dhoni came up with the calm and storm, much like Sachin Tendulkar. But like his idol, MS switched gears as well as and when needed. The pomp diminished but thrive for glory remained unflinchingly reassuring. The World Cup 2011 promotion didn’t have bravado as reasoning but more logic attached to it. The onslaught over wide long on off Nuwan Kulasekara will remain etched in the annals of World cricketing history. A nation’s hunger for 28 years had finally been satiated.

Sachin – the Surgeon 

When the puss of match-fixing resided in Indian Cricket, the future seemed cancer-ish. I vividly remember many people saying, “Paisa Khaya Hai Inn Logon Ne” while watching matches. Indian fans before social media came in were still brutal! But it was the great set of heroes that comprised Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Kumble, Laxman, and Srinath who played their souls out to battle the situations and win back the lost dignity caused by former teammates. One bad performance and you will be labelled as fixers. That was the norm in the late 90s and early 2000’s.

The Ganguly-led team was hungry for victories and hence if we look back at the tallies post-1999, we will see the entire top order’s hunger for runs. They had an image to change. They took matters in their own hand with Sachin at the forefront. Sachin, being the poster boy of Indian Cricket, had the pressure to perform every time he went out to bat. Great artists don’t belong to their homes anymore once their art is loved by the public. They are in the eye of the public. Scrutinized and vilified at every failure. Similarly, Sachin Tendulkar’s runs and thus centuries were not his, those were of the people, of their immense expectations. Harsha Bhogle had once said, “When Sachin bats well, India sleeps well.” And Sachin mostly ensured Indians slept well. He had commanders in the form of Virender Sehwag and Sourav Ganguly at the other end at the top to allow him to be far more calculative.

Sachin Tendulkar’s no ‘cover drive’ resolution at SCG in 2004 made him stitch together 241 runs. The bouncer troubled him. He ducked down more, Multan might have witnessed sheer enthral of Viru in 2004 but Sachin scored 194 as well. He was prepared to take the back seat. The torch-bearer was prepared to be the guiding light. Remember how he took on Brad Hogg in the 2007-08 tour down under. Soured by the Monkeygate scandal, Sachin’s exclusive treatment of Hogg often slips under the carpet. The lofted shots and the slog sweeps were back. You suddenly thought there are chances of reincarnation but Sachin was now the surgeon. Special cases needed special handling techniques.

Match-fixing was not the only instance. After the Chappell blow and the WC 2007 exit, India was in dire need of a Captain to take the team forward. A team that on the brink of a transition had reached a dead end. It needed a sharp cricketing brain to walk in and take things forward. The wound was open and the healing process wasn’t to be seen. With Ganguly in his last leg of his career and Dravid putting down the papers, it was up to the senior-most again. Anil Kumble was a stop-gap arrangement. But Indian cricket needed a permanent solution. Sachin Tendulkar’s recommendation for MS Dhoni as Captain is no news for anyone now. It surprised everyone and even MS himself was surprised. In an interview, he had said that perhaps the keeper-first slip conversations were key to Sachin believing in his Cricketing acumen and putting forward his name as the Indian Captain. The surgeon had stitched the wound with precision!

If you ask what shall be the personality trait to be a surgeon, the answer would be calm, focused and precise. Well, hasn’t MS Dhoni been that ever since we have seen him? Spiderman’s aunt had this to say, “With great powers come great responsibilities.” India’s new-found Samson with long locks understood that when he was given the charge.

Having a mix of experience and young blood in the side, MS Dhoni’s composure was tested from the beginning. And as history has it, he passed every test. Captaining an Indian team has always been like climbing a steep mountain. He saw, evaluated, decided on things (some harsh calls too) and then with a battalion that he could trust in climbing the mountain with, he marched on. India’s phenomenal rise under MS Dhoni is a Shakespearean romance with a happy ending. Contrary to his menacing approach with the bat, his captaincy was calm and elevated Indian Cricket to unparalleled heights. With the cricketing evolution happening in many ways, MS Dhoni was at the helm of steering Indian Cricket through the phase. And with consistency in performance as a batter and a skipper, he didn’t let the fans down. IPL’s trysts with the public also made cricket a more scrutinized product, if it wasn’t under the microscope already.

The best thing about MS Dhoni’s captaincy is that though he has played with a lot of cricketers with and around, he was definite with his picks and decisions. Options often spoil us but MS had his methods perhaps. Else, who would have given the intense last over to Joginder Sharma! That too in a world cup final!!! It had bravado from a superficial level. But had logic as well as Harbhajan Singh, the other option was being clobbered by Misbah that evening. Surgery is not always done by a scissor; it is done by conquering with plans, like the Caesar. MS knew how to separate the chaff from the grain.

Much like life, Cricket has also changed with time and it further will. The willow is heavier on the ball now. The number of overs and boundary are being pulled back in to make the game more interesting. Records of Sachin’s batting and Dhoni’s captaincy are/will being/be broken. Perhaps their prudent descendant, Virat Kohli will have all of it to his name. But the butcher-surgeon duo will remain the most charismatic set of cricketers the World has ever seen. Not just in terms of performance, popularity or conduct, but also in terms of the wholesome impact. They are like vowels, without whom your wordbook has very few words only.