By Qaiser Mohammad Ali, IANS
New Delhi : For Mahendra Singh Dhoni, whose first love was football, elevation to the Indian team’s captaincy within three years of playing international cricket is like a fairytale.
During his school days, Dhoni played football and idolised Zinedine Zidane and David Beckham, before switching to cricket.
And football’s loss was cricket’s gain.
Named the skipper Tuesday for the upcoming One-day International series against Australia and Pakistan, in addition to the Twenty20 team that he is leading in South Africa, Dhoni’s rise has been unique since his international debut.
Aged 26 and with a vast experience already under his belt, he quickly established himself in the national team essentially on his hard-hitting batting. But he has also done well as India’s No.1 choice wicket-keeper – so much so that he seems to have permanently displaced Dinesh Karthik, who now plays as a specialist batsman.
Besides being a safe wicket-keeper, Dhoni the batsman has been able to adapt to different situations. He has the ability to control his big-hitting prowess and bat according to the situation, as he showed in a Champions Trophy match against the West Indies in Ahmedabad in October last year.
With India struggling at 131 for five and with the cream of the batting gone, Dhoni rose to the demands of the team and eschewed his flamboyance and instead grafted for his runs. He scored an uncharacteristic 51 off 65 balls, but more important was his willingness to cut down on his shot making and play for the team.
And, on the recent tour of England, Dhoni scored an unbeaten 76 to play an important role in India drawing the first Test by the skin of their teeth at Lord’s. It was again defensive batting from Dhoni, much against his natural instinct.
But when Dhoni is in mood, he can shred the best of bowling attack. His 183 off just 145 balls against Sri Lanka in the Jaipur one-dayer on Oct 31, 2005, was a prime example of his belligerence with bat. He smashed 15 boundaries and 10 sixes to carve the highest score by a wicket-keeper in the ODI history.
Somewhere down the line Dhoni showed leaderships qualities too. And Dilip Vengsarkar’s selection panel was convinced that it was the man with a long mane who would be the apt choice to replace Rahul Dravid as ODI captain, looking forward.
Coming from a middle-class family – his father worked in the Mecon steel plant in Ranchi – Dhoni attended the DAV School, Shyamali, and played a lot of football before taking up the gloves.
He represented the undivided Bihar state in the under-16 side and made his debut in the Ranji Trophy in 1999.
Dhoni came under the national limelight with his electrifying batting for India ‘A’ on the tour of Zimbabwe and a triangular one-day series with Pakistan ‘A’ and Kenya in Kenya in August 2004.
Dhoni excelled behind and in front of the wickets and won all-round acclaim for his performances, especially against Pakistan ‘A’ on the African safari.
In seven matches in the triangular series, Dhoni smashed 362 runs at 72.40, including two centuries and one half-century. He also held 13 catches behind the wickets and effected three stumpings to be named the Man of the Series.
Dhoni instantly came into the national reckoning for the ODI side even as the selectors’ rationale behind juggling different wicket-keepers was being questioned by cricket pundits.
Even though Karthik had done well enough in the Test series against Bangladesh to be retained for the ODIs on that 2004 tour, the selectors gave Dhoni a soft launch against the weak opposition in December.
Although Dhoni, now employed with Indian Airlines, did not set the stands on fire in Dhaka and Chittagong, the selectors retained him for the six ODIs against Pakistan at home in 2005 to give him enough opportunity to prove himself.
He grabbed it and the rest is history.