Dhoni: India8217;s Captain Cool

8220;Whatever is destined to happen will happen. It is not just my own destiny, it was the destiny of the whole team 8211;but I believe unless you do your required hard work you don8217;t achieve it8221;, he said.

Dhoni took just a fortnight to prove his mettle as the captain and if the World Cup performances are anything to go by, India has found its 8216;Captain Cool8217; in the star batsman-stumper with flowing tresses.

The 26-year-old Dhoni8217;s maturity and composure in pressure cooker situations and his shrewd captaincy stood out in both the matches against Pakistan, as also in the semifinal against Australia.

After the Group match with Pakistan ended in a tie, Dhoni asked Robin Uthappa, Virender Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh to take the bowl-out, resting his tired pacers. Dhoni anticipated such situations and had done the homework.

His opposite number Shoaib Malik was at sea and after India won the bowl-out 3-0 to maintain its clean slate against Pakistan in World Cup, Malik admitted he had no clue about it.

In the match against Australia too, Dhoni showed tremendous courage. He took a calculated gamble by asking unheralded Joginder Sharma to bowl the last over.

Teammates warned him that the Haryana all-rounder8217;s military pace would make him an easy meat for the Aussies but Dhoni felt it would be difficult to score off Joginder8217;s pace, or rather lack of it, and the captain stood vindicated in the end as Australia eventually lost by 15 runs.

It was the same story on Monday night. Pakistan needed 13 runs off the last over and Dhoni again tossed the ball to Joginder.

Misbah-ul-Haq was going great guns and he hit Joginder for a six to reduce the gap but the Indian did the trick again as Misbah scooped to perish, finding S Sreesanth at short fine leg. Once again, Dhoni had outsmarted his rivals and it was as much a win for India as it was for Dhoni8217;s leadership skills.

Dhoni loves life in the fast lane, something evident from his penchant for fast bikes, and it8217;s hardly surprising that within three years, the affable swashbuckler rose from the obscurity of Jharkhand to lead India to Twenty20 World Cup glory.

And 8216;Mahi8217;, as he is affectionately called, could well have been lost to football but for his soccer coach, who felt he was better suited for cricket and convinced his ward to pursue the bat-and-ball game.

So football8217;s loss became cricket8217;s gain and Dhoni8217;s fairytale career reached new heights with Monday night8217;s nail-biting win over arch-rivals Pakistan.

Since getting the call-up for the Vinoo Mankad trophy Under-16 championship in 1997-98, Dhoni has never looked back.