Captain Cool finishes it off in his own style

I had been an avid cricket lover since my childhood and still am. Both my father and younger brother were also die-hard cricket lover from the beginning. I remember those days when we used to listen to cricket commentary in transistors when we did not have TV at home. After TV came, we used to wake up as early as 3:00 am to watch when matches were in New Zealand. During that time, there were no Day-Night Cricket. Whenever India lost, both my brother & I used to get depressed. We won’t even eat. My mom used to get irritated looking at our more-than-justified dedication towards cricket. The same passion continues after decades and now my wife gets irritated for the same.

I am not sure it’s a generation thing or something else, these days kids are not so much into cricket, in fact my kids don’t even understand cricket. There are so much of technicalities involved and if someone is not genuinely interested, it is hard to follow & know all the rules. From my childhood, I remember me & my brother taking 3 sticks, sticking it on the ground as stumps and started paying cricket with a flat wood as a bat and a plastic ball. We did not know the rules. Once after hitting the ball, we could not find the ball immediately and the batsman was running between the wickets until we found the ball, probably he would have scored around 20 or 30 runs in one delivery - those are the funny memories we still cherish ??.

As days progressed, we learned more about cricket and fell in love with it. We had our cricketing heroes. We used to collect photocards of the cricketers when we were in school and took pride of those precious possessions. I remember I had the cards for Sunil Gavaskar, Imran Khan, Kapil Dev, Mohinder Amarnath, Sandeep Patil, Dilip Vengsarkar, Ravi Shastri, Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Desmond Haynes, Gordon Greenidge, Malcolm Marshall, Graham Gooch, David Gower, Martin Crowe, Richard Hadlee and many more. For me, I rated the cricketing heroes above most of my favorite movie stars. But my favorite kept on changing over time – For me here is the sequence Sunil Gavaskar -> Kapil Dev -> Mohammad Azharuddin -> Sachin Tendulkar -> Mahendra Singh Dhoni (MSD). Though I am still big fan of all of them, but I rate MSD at a distant top from others. I understand, we can’t compare players from different generations, they were greats in their own time. But as a fan, MSD is and will be probably my all-time favorite. Again, this is my opinion and I am going to try my best to give my perspective what’s special about MSD.

I had been fascinated by MSD’s personality, leadership style, and the way he handles things on & off the field. I can relate to his leadership style in our own corporate world. You can draw many parallels between cricket and corporate life – There are situations when you must take critical decisions, choose an option out of multiple in front of you and that’s too very quickly, how to mobilize the team and keep the spirits up and lead them during crisis.

Personality

A small-town Guy:

MSD is a small-town guy. Inferiority complex is very normal for many with his background. But not for him. You look at Dhoni’s personality. You can find the rawness that he brings in. He is not manufactured, he is original. He did not change himself to fit into some stereotypes, he did what he felt right. I feel like even if MSD were not a cricketer, I would have followed him and would have been his fan. Would that be possible with any other cricketer, I don’t think so anyone comes close to it.

No Fuss:

He makes thing non-event. Look how he stepped down from Test Cricket. Look how he retired now. Absolutely NO fuss. Many of the celebrated cricketers wants their last game to be an event and had openly talked about it when BCCI did not give them a chance, but not for Dhoni. He is different, that’s the best I like about him.

Simplicity & non-egoistic:

Everyone loved Dhoni-the person. An epitome of simplicity non-egoistic Dhoni had been the cynosure of all eyes for years. I have seen people rooted for ‘Chennai Super King’ just for Dhoni (Me included). Go to Chennai and you can see Dhoni-craze calling him the "Thala" ( means “Head” in Tamil). He was able to cross all boundaries to become a role model for millions.

Aura:

Have you realized, people feel good when they discuss about Dhoni? Sometimes it goes to a level when people want a team to win just because Dhoni is in that team. I have seen that when Dhoni moved to ‘Rising Pune Supergiants’ team in IPL, even the CSL fans started rooting for Pune team-That’s normally not normal. You can imagine the power that Dhoni had as a crowd-puller. That’s shows he is not ordinary cricketer. The Aura that he brings in is beyond cricket.

He is more than a cricketer – A leader. Let’s see the leadership side of Dhoni now.

Leadership

MSD’s leadership had been original. If you compare 'Dhoni-The-Person' and 'Dhoni-The-Leader', it aligns perfectly. That’s the best thing about a leader that s/he does not try to be a different self when s/he wears the leader hat. The core should be intact as you can bring out your best when you are acting as yourself and not as someone else. You are what you are and refine yourself to get better.

Look at Dhoni – he led stars like Sachin, Dravid, Harbhajan, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Zaheer (and even Sourav) immediately after being the captain. From my personal experience I can tell this is so very difficult. I moved to management role as a career move and as a part of the team reorganization, my manager started reporting to me. I could feel what Dhoni must have gone through when these stalwarts played under him. In Indian culture, seniority plays a big role and to manage seniors is not trivial and mainly when we are talking about a bunch of superstars together. And he did it exceptionally well, after the debacle and low morale under Greg Chappell, he found a formula to bring back teams moral and winning ways. He backed his players and knew their strength and used it very effectively.

Below are just a few lessons learned from MSD:

Don’t let the situation take control of your mind:

This is highly critical in crisis situations and unprecedented time just like what we are going through at this point. Gray Kristen once said “I will go to the war with Dhoni by my side” – That summaries it. Such a cool personality undeterred by any situation and focusing on his goal like Arjun’s ‘Matsya Vedh’. He is such a calm personality, rightly termed as “Captain Cool”. You must have seen him numerous times how calm he was after a match whether team wins or loses, always emotionally isolated from the results, a balanced personality to the core.

Patience:

Having enormous patience, takes the match to the last over ball by ball and finishes it off, undoubtedly the ‘Best Finisher’ of the game of cricket that the world has ever produced. It’s about patience and not getting bogged down with pressure. It’s about working continuously on the strategy at hand, do one thing at a time and move to the next while the final goal is always in mind. When there had been a huge score to chase, what he had done is divide the target into multiple phases and attacked one target at a time. When immediate target is achieved, go for the next one until finishing it off in style – Example of ‘focused-patience’ .

Process is important not the result:

Dhoni has often talked about how the process is more important than the result, the result is just a by-product of the process. He believed in that and guided the team accordingly through out his career. I believe if you have done the things right, have done your preparation and gone through hard work, results are bound to come. So better to focus on the process part which will lead to the result.

Team comes first:

If you had seen numerous trophies that he had own as a captain, during presentation ceremony, he just hands over the trophy to the team and stepped aside. Always gives the credit to the team – he knows a captain is as good as his team. No hunger for limelight. Just doing his job – These kinds of gestures brings in a lot of respect for him. But it should come naturally which is in Dhoni’s case.

Know your team:

Some might think Dhoni is shy or introvert. But Dhoni's style of functioning was to quietly do his things without saying much. He knows the strength of each player of his team and tactically uses them. You might have seen in many games how he rotated his bowers which might seem little unconventional, but if you analyse why he took a particular step, you will realize his deep knowledge of his player and the situation that made him take the decision.

Confidence on your ability:

Remember how many times he had taken the match to the end, planned perfectly with right kind of risk and finished it off with just a few balls or no balls to spare. I remember many a time me being a big cricket lover had gone through uncomfortable situation and becoming restless when MDS had ducked a ball with a big asking run rate. I did not understand why he had to do that. Not just me, most does not understand. Sometimes commentators had talked about it openly not able to understand The ‘Dhoni-Logic’ and 'Dhoni-Mindset' at that time. But finally, he had scored the runs and won matches. Which shows the immense Confidence on his ability to finish games.

Believe in your instinct & go with your gut:

When MSD gave the ball to Joginder Singh during 2007 T20 World cup final, I am not sure how many hearts would have pounded vigorously and how many of us would have thought it was not the right move. As a captain, one would have gone with a safer option with an established bowler, but you know what he did, and rest is history. And this is not the only time, if you see the long 16 years career of his, you will find similar examples again and again and it has proved right most of the time. The numerous DRS decision, which he had got right most of the times. So, it is not a fluke, he is able to think what others can’t even imagine. Take unconventional steps (people even called him a ‘Gambler’) to achieve results.

Be aggressive when needed:

One does not need to be aggressive all the time as aggression consumes energy. You got to preserve energy and use it when needed. Dhoni has done it throughout his career. Keeping his best for the last when it is indeed required. No need to be a Hero all the time when it can be achieved without any visible heroism.

Make your work as your passion:

A new father Dhoni once said, ‘I am on national duties so everything else can wait’. The dedication and passion he has is amazing. Without that, it is not easy to achieve what he did coming from a place in Jharkhand.

As they once said:

Michael Hussey said “I am really gifted to play under the leadership of MSD”

Virat Kohli said “I don’t think one can question MS’ leadership”

Kapil Dev said “Dhoni is my hero …”

Sachin Tendulkar said “Dhoni is the best captain I have played under”

But everything must end one day. And so is the case of MSD’s cricketing career. He retired, but in is own style again without any fuss. Will miss you captain cool. Salute!!!!