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IPL 2019. It is the eve of the star-studded opening sport between hosts Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore. The huge gathering of media personnel await the press conferences of the two captains—CSK’s MS Dhoni and RCB’s Virat Kohli, respectively. Kohli enters the room first, and finally ends up fielding loads of questions on his different avatar of being the Indian cricket captain—queries on the upcoming World Cup in England and the way he tends to handle the workload of his squad members unfold throughout numerous franchises.
When Kohli exits the room, anticipation builds for Dhoni’s arrival. Not simply because he’s the house captain at Chepauk, but in addition as a result of he has hardly ever addressed the press since being relieved of his position of main the nation.
Also learn: You will at all times be my captain: Virat Kohli to MS Dhoni yet one more time
Our questions are prepared. But in walks CSK coach Stephen Fleming. And that is how it might stay for the remainder of the match, one which Dhoni and CSK had been defending no much less, one which he would lead into yet one more closing, narrowly shedding to Mumbai Indians on championship day. Yet, he wouldn’t as soon as handle anybody past the IPL commentators at post-match displays.
By the finish of his profession, Dhoni’s stoic silence spoke greater than his precise phrases—a far cry from what he was like when seated behind a clutch of microphones in the previous. Quite like the size of his mane, Dhoni’s solutions ended up getting shorter as his profession progressed.
It wasn’t at all times like that. There was as soon as a time when Dhoni was as flamboyant along with his phrases in entrance of journalists as he was on the area past the convention room, usually utilizing his distinctive sense of humour to disarm the scribes on the different facet of his desk.
Also learn: ‘MS Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh changed the concept of chasing in ODIs’: Ajit Agarkar
Take for instance the 2011-12 tour of Australia, which started with a debacle of a Test leg that ended 0-Four for India. As the Test stalwarts left for India and had been changed by youthful members for the T20 collection, Dhoni was requested how the temper in the dressing room had modified.
Not a lot, he replied, other than the music: “From Kishore Kumar, we have gone to Sean Paul.” No quantity of research might higher sum up the change of guard, and tradition, underway at that time in the group.
Sometimes he was plain cryptic. Like when the Indian group arrived a day late for the Napier Test throughout their 2009 tour of New Zealand, preferring to remain again in Auckland. Wouldn’t it have an effect on the group’s preparations, he was requested. Dhoni smiled, earlier than replying with a solution for the ages:
“The mind doesn’t know if it’s Napier, or what you’re feeding it. You come and say this is Napier, it believes it is Napier. You say it is day, it believes it is day. If you see, it’s abstract,” he mentioned, leaving his viewers each flummoxed and entertained.
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At different occasions Dhoni was so honest that his solutions appeared self-deprecatory. On the tour of South Africa in 2010-11, forward of the Cape Town ODI Dhoni spoke of why he would favor to bat first in a day-night match, as a result of “the ball also tends to do a little under lights”. Until a journalist requested why that was—what was the logic behind the white ball being affected by the floodlights.
“To be honest, I also only say that because I heard the commentators say that on TV when I was young. So, I don’t really know,” he mentioned, inflicting awe for his honesty, and loads of laughter. Just like after a very lengthy tour with the collection on the line, when he mentioned: “I have three dogs at home. Even after losing a series or winning a series, they treat me the same way.”
The humour remained in his tone, for a short time at the least, as soon as these questions started probing for his retirement. After India had been knocked out of the 2016 T20 World Cup in the semi-final, the ‘R’ phrase was introduced up by an Australian journalist, who was summoned to the dais by Dhoni and made to tug up a chair beside him.
“You want me to retire? I was hoping it was an Indian media guy because I can’t really say if you have a brother or a son who can play for India, who is a wicketkeeper,” Dhoni mentioned whereas addressing the journalist Samuel Ferris, who would later write about his expertise in a column for cricket.com.au.
“Word has it Dhoni hates that question and was ready to pounce on an Indian journalist who was going to ask it. Even though I fired the wrong ammunition, it seems I took a bullet for my Indian colleagues.”
Different captains cope with hectic questions in several methods. His successor, Kohli, tends to return hearth with an aggressive tone. Dhoni would flip wholly silent—first in pressers and later away from them.
Before India’s departure for the 2013 Champions Trophy in England, captain Dhoni was requested about the spot-fixing scandal that had rocked IPL that yr. After all, CSK and Gurunath Meiyappan (son-in-law of N Srinivasan, the then BCCI president and in addition the proprietor of the Chennai group) had been at the coronary heart of the controversy. The questions had been many. Dhoni remained mum proper via it.
The silence had made headlines in 2012 too. That time it wasn’t journalists however VVS Laxman at the receiving finish of it. Before taking the choice to retire, Laxman is claimed to have phoned his captain to inform him the information first. But the calls went unanswered. When Dhoni was later requested about it he admitted to being aloof.
“You think of it as controversy. But people who know me have often complained that I am someone who is very difficult to get hold of,” he mentioned. “That may be the reason why Lacchu bhai could not get hold of me. I am trying to improve, but I have not really improved.”
The straw that broke the camel’s again and ensured Dhoni would utterly reduce off from airing his views got here simply earlier than he handed the reins of the Indian group over to Kohli. After India’s slender win in opposition to Bangladesh at the 2016 World Cup, Dhoni—a person who as soon as handled the hardest grilling with a smile—snapped.
“I don’t think you are happy that India won. If you can’t analyse the reason why it was a low-scoring match, you shouldn’t ask such questions,” Dhoni retorted, simply as he would someday later when requested about his retirement as soon as once more. “Just because you have the freedom to ask questions doesn’t mean you can ask anything. You should judge why and when a thing should be done,” he mentioned then.
The silence has since been deafening—via the 2019 World Cup, Dhoni’s closing match for India, and for 13 months thereafter. It would stay that approach till the very finish. When he lastly referred to as it a day, Indian cricket’s most charismatic speaker allowed a brief caption and a track by Mukesh to do all his speaking.
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