Making of a finisher

Over the years,Sanjeev has made peace with the many significant alterations that have occurred around Dhoni’s life,and also with how they have affected the frequency of their reunions. But as he realized recently,among other things,what has also changed over time is his long-time friend’s approach towards run-chases.

“Back then,he had only one rule about run-chases and that was to never let it last till the last over. Finish it off before the final over,he would say always,” recalls Sanjeev,“But here he was at Perth,leaving the assault right up to the 50th over.”

But does the drastic change in approach surprise him? Not even faintly,insists Sanjeev,who incidentally was Dhoni’s first-ever cricket captain back in their school days.

“He has got the most calculative mind you can imagine behind that ultra-cool exterior. He never would say a word while we were travelling in a bus for a match,but his mind was bursting with ideas,and he would pour them out the moment we entered the field,” says Sanjeev about Dhoni during his school and club cricket days.

“He always had the knack of innately comprehending the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition,about which bowlers to attack and who to defend against,” says his first coach Keshav Ranjan Banerjee.

Dhoni he believes has always had an enigmatic comprehension of every possible situation during a match. And it is this ability that has allowed him to become the foremost of finishers in the history of ODI cricket,as his average of 107.94 in run-chases that India have won or tied would suggest.

At least,his present teammates can take solace from the fact that the Dhoni-mind has forever remained impregnable,working on its own terms,eking out solutions even in the direst of circumstances,and all seemingly without ever showing to be panicking. While a lot has already been written about the various traits that Dhoni possesses as a finisher presently,Sanjeev and Banerjee were among the first lot to be astounded by them. They,however,only witnessed the first chapter of the making of Dhoni – the Finisher.

Master of reinvention

What has really helped him carve a never-seen-before niche at this difficult art is his ability to keep reinventing himself at every stage of his career. Over the seven years or so at the international stage,Dhoni has been like a booker in professional wrestling parlance,repeatedly rewriting his own kayfabe gimmick with every given match,every given situation,with every single ball. Dhoni in fact has forever been the go-to man in every team he has played in ever since his DAV Jawahar days – regardless of whether he was captain or not. And the ability to finish off matches,almost single-handedly at times,has always been one of the salient features of his cricketing CV.

Almost everyone who played with him in his junior and pre-India days has at least one anecdote about the wicket-keeper batsman’s overwhelming self-confidence and his penchant for taking on challenges and fulfilling them. All facets that he would exemplify and accentuate once he graduated into the Indian team. Those former teammates he had amazed with his unyielding tenacity,however,still talk about those largely forgotten feats with awe.

“We once had a stiff target to chase on a very slow-low wicket in Bareilly,and desperately required someone to put his hand up. No one was ready to go out but Dhoni himself offered to open the innings and then won the match convincingly with a spectacular century,” says former Indian fast bowler Vivek Razdan,who skippered Dhoni while playing for Delhi Blues,a club-side in the capital.

“His temperament has always been superb,but it’s his can-do spirit that sets him apart from others,” adds Razdan.

The can-do spirit,however,can be attributed to what might be considered a fallacy in most others lacking the inimitable poise that Dhoni possesses. For an understated undemonstrative guy,the Indian captain can be held guilty for having been a sucker for challenges all his life. But his resolve to take every one of them head-on almost as a dare is what makes him the champion that he is. “If someone says something cannot be done,then Mahi will make sure that he disproves that belief by overcoming that challenge. And you get to see this tendency even while he is practising in the nets,” says MP Singh,Dhoni’s coach at the NIS.

Former Bihar and Jharkhand skipper Tarique-ur-Rehman remembers playing alongside Dhoni in a match for Air-India against UPCA,where once again the future Indian captain’s audacity came to the fore.

“Everyone was talking about how potent Ashish Winston Zaidi (veteran UP fast bowler) was expected to be. Dhoni promptly tonked him for seven big sixes. In another match on a tricky wicket against Haryana,he hit the first ball for a straight six. The clarity in his mind is exemplary,” Rehman reminisces. Ask Banerjee,and he’ll take you back to a school-match where Dhoni over-ruled the coach’s preference and blazed away to a match-winning ton as an opener.

The reputation of being a clinical finisher,however,is one that he had established long before his equally audacious locks became the rage of the nation. It’s his keenness and magnanimity to embrace any role handed to him in the team that has characterised his meteoric rise. It is his defiance against being rigid with any proven formula in run-chases that has helped him ambush every single strategy employed against him by opposition captains,much to their chagrin.

Having come into the limelight with the aura of an impudent bludgeoner,that’s the role he adopted in his initial days with Team India. And he couldn’t have made a better first impression as a finisher than an average of 219.50 with a strike-rate of 113.14 in 10 successful run-chases for India in his maiden year of international cricket.

“He started off as an impact player but he is now a well-rounded player,who understands fully the value of singles,” says Razdan. “The team management wanted him to start rotating the strike more and become a complete player,” adds Singh.

While Dhoni transformed from smasher to accumulator without much fuss,it also marked his rapidly burgeoning responsibilities in the Indian team despite his career still being at a nascent stage. And as always,he duly adapted. Twenty-one of his 36 sixes overall in accomplished run-chases were hit in his very first season,and 26 of those came before he was named ODI captain. His strike-rate as a finisher pre-captaincy was a staggering 105.07 compared to 81.39 after he took over the reins. He has remained equally effective though,still averaging the most for a captain in run-chases.

Robin Singh himself played the finisher’s role in the pre-Dhoni generation,and was quite successful in the role too. And he insists that the present-day Dhoni is the complete package,a man who has the game for any possible scenario,and dictates his own terms throughout.

“He is the best finisher in ODI/T20 cricket. He strikes the ball with tremendous power,is a superb runner between the wickets and remodels his game most-suited to the situation. He is also very astute,knowing when exactly to take on the opposition,” says Robin. He adds that the body language of a finisher makes all the difference,insisting that the opposition is always looking to pounce on any nervous or uncomfortable vibes they can pick up on.

Poker face

And body language,or lack of it,has been Dhoni’s strongest attribute as a finisher. His almost cowboy-like ability to remain stone-cold in the face of adversity,and sail even a sinking ship to safety has astonished all comers. That aspect of his persona has remained an integral part,and has been singularly responsible for him winning matches often in the final over of the innings. But while he leaves viewers and experts grappling with disbelief with his inconspicuous celebrations; his complete lack of animation and the most inscrutable of poker-faces instil fear in the opposing camp,unnerving them. They also provide a calming effect on his partners.

And his peers from the past insist that Dhoni has never been one for extended mid-wicket discussions.

“The maximum he would say is keep giving me the strike,or just don’t get out. He will never put any sort of pressure on you,” Sanjeev recalls.

These are but prerequisites for being a successful finisher,says Robin,who also rates Michael Hussey,Arjuna Ranatunga and Javed Miandad highly in this exclusive club. Dhoni is quicker and more proactive than Ranatunga ever was between the wickets while being a more brutal version of Miandad sans the theatrics. Plus he’s got the helicopter shot,the perfect weapon for the deadly yorker. Where Dhoni surpasses all other challengers though is his propensity to keep upgrading almost as rapidly as technology-though ironically he’s no fan of it. But like former skipper Rehman says,“Mahi is convinced that his funda is the correct funda. More often than not,his fundas just come off.”

There is no one way to describe Dhoni the finisher. In more ways than one,Dhoni is in himself the definition. The ultimate.