M S Dhoni

The young, bold and charismatic skipper that he is, MS Dhoni has created quite a flutter already in his short career. He is now an overwhelming favourite of the masses, the media, the corporate and the cricketing world. It has indeed been a surprise to note the rate at which our man has climbed to this platform of stardom and power in just three years. There must be some quality in him which sets him apart from the rest. Or the gullible people of this country have easily been hypnotised by this magician.

He is now a man so confident of himself that he never pauses to ponder over the decisions that he takes-as if he had foreseen that fate would always take care of him in future, and moreover, has this uncanny knack of producing amazingly brilliant results with it. His personality is magnetic to the world, even when he suffers with a drop of form he is never subjected to total criticism. It is interesting to note that when he arrived in the scene he was taken a special note of by everyone due to his collective wicketkeeping and batting abilities-his consistent performances including his 148 against Pakistan and 183 against Sri Lanka, which propelled the selectors to take him into reckoning, seem a distant past now. Even though he still has a brilliant average of 49, he has more importantly been able to guide his team to famous victories, and save his face gracefully during the odd defeats, like the loss at the consecutive finals at the Kitply Cup and the Asia Cup. He showed us during IPL a part of his mature self when he gracefully accepted defeat off the last delivery in the finals, because he evidently does not become pretentious during these situations, quite unlike the Roger Federer post-match after having lost the final at Wimbledon. And that increases the aura about him.

For now atleast, this personality more than his abilities makes him an extraordinary leader. Needless to say, he has a lot of similarities with his pre-predecessor Sourav Ganguly, who has had to face a taste of bad life a few years ago. With his suggestions like that of dropping seniors for the one-day squad and the bold step of withdrawing from the test side momentarily, one does hope that his confidence(or over-confidence) does not bring his downfall. A hero that he is , he still exists as a human, and he, more than us needs to reflect on that. Or maybe, the Jharkhand lad is a magician enough to realise better than us what he is upto.