July 17, 2026

MS Dhoni: Leader Par Excellence

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2020-08-20 20:14:31

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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack

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Mahendra Singh Dhoni has retired from international cricket. With that, a glorious career has come to an end. More than what Dhoni did as a player (which, incidentally, was not peanuts), it was what he did as a leader that will stay more with his admirers. As a player, he introduced some brilliant and innovative shots (the most famous being his trademark helicopter shot) and a briskness in batting by rotating the strike that was absent in the Indian team ever since the 'retirement' of Azharuddin. His numbers show 4876 runs (average 38+) from 90 Tests, 10773 runs (average 50+) from 350 ODIs and 1617 runs (average 37+) from 98 T20 matches. He also took 256 catches and affected 38 stumpings in Tests, 321 and 123 in ODIs and 57 and 34 in T20s. Most players would be proud of these numbers alone.

But Dhoni's greatness was multiplied many times due to his keen cricketing brain, the capacity to learn, adapt and employ and the manner in which he inspired and carried the team with him. People still remember how an ordinary player like Mike Brearley rose to great heights by being a motivating leader of people. Brearley used his people management skills to bring glory to England by winning 17 and losing only 4 of the matches in which he captained the country. But Dhoni was both a great player and a great leader. He led by example and many times brought victory by his batting. Who can forget the innings he played by promoting himself up the order in the World Cup final in 2011 and hit a six to bring up the victory?

Infosys co-founder Narayan Murthy paid the ultimate tribute to Dhoni's leadership qualities when he wrote that corporate India can learn from the way Dhoni remained cool on the field and managed to turn several tricky situations in the team's favour by employing innovative strategies. The best thing is that the man always remained humble and carried the team with him. The proof of this lies in the fact that almost everyone who played under him considers him to be the best captain they played under. He instilled self-belief in them and made them realize that they could win from hopeless situations if they kept their cool. Indian cricket will remain forever indebted to MSD, the small-town boy with no cricketing pedigree who showed the world that talent and class do not belong only to the privileged.