End of an 'Era' - Time Out

With the 1st ODI today, it is a new beginning in Indian Cricket and at the same time  end of an era of captaincy.  Calling 8 years of Dhoni’s captaincy an ‘era’ may sound little exaggerated, but not really if you look at India’s achievements during this period. Though I have not been a big fan of Dhoni, one will have to admire his achievements as a player, captain and an ambassador of the game.  He has played all these roles to near perfection, more so as a captain and a one day batsman.

As a batsman he made his mark with his explosive batting when he came in. That itself was an achievement given the explosiveness the Indian batting line already had. With  the likes of Shewag, Sachin,Ganguly, Dravid, Yuvaraj any new comer wold have been overawed, but not Dhoni. Getting elevated to captaincy of T20 team overtaking almost a dozen other senior players, he won it with his cool head. Could you imagine any other conservative captain giving the last over of the finals to someone like Joginder Sharma?

Dhoni displayed that kind of ‘Street smartness’ during his entire captaincy, with success most of the times and failures in between. We who had played Tennis ball cricket all along, always found the leather ball cricket a total different ball game. Players like Dhoni bridged the gap between street cricket and professional cricket with a fresh approach to batting and captaincy. We could see lot of tennis ball batting shots played by him on international stage without any inhibitions. I think that is what has made Dhoni so popular with the masses along with the likes of other greats of Indian Cricket.

Players like Dhoni also conveyed the message that India and Indian cricket is much more than the metros or the big cities. They represented the vibrant untapped talent the smaller cities offered. Indian Cricket really did blossom under Dhoni’s captaincy and the brilliance and aura of Virat Kohli at present could have been the only thing that would have diminished its effect as it has done now.

Dhoni has set high standards of captaincy and left a legacy for the future captains to better it.

Thanks Dhoni.