MUMBAI — Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who had practically left the pursuit of popularity charts for the sake of doing full justice to his new responsibility as India’s captain, is gradually astounding everyone, not the least, his worst critics.
Even when he showed tremendous leadership qualities, while captaining India to the first Twenty20 World Cup triumph, there were many who doubted his credentials, saying that there was nothing really in the shortest version of the game to test the true caliber of a captain.
Dhoni once again proved his mettle when he was asked to lead the One-day International (ODI) side at home and again on the tour of Australia. He brought a whole, new and youthful spirit in the team. Several past players and some critics, however, were not pleased by the whiff of fresh air that the young captain sought to bring into Indian cricket, especially for the shorter version of the game. They came down heavily on him when he apparently had the final say in the composition of the squad with just one senior player, Sachin Tendulkar, in the squad.
Seven of the players who had done duty in the Test series against Australia, including Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, were left out for the ODI squad. Since the team did not fare so well at the start of the second half of the tour, starting with the rout in the only Tentry20 match, the criticism of the ex-players and those serving as experts on TV News networks grew louder. They found fault with almost every decision that Dhoni took in the matter of playing policy and team selection.
He was particularly lambasted for including a terribly out-of-form Yuvraj Singh in the playing eleven.
The only people who backed him by rightly assessing his merit as captain were the former players Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri, who freely aired their comments during commentary sessions on television. Both were highly appreciative of the remarkable leadership that Dhoni displayed.
Dhoni hit back at his critics by the only way he knew best and that is by producing the results and himself playing a stellar role in achieving that, both in front of and behind the stumps.
