Gulu Ezekiel - Captain Cool: The M.S. Dhoni Story - 4th Revised Edition

Captain Cool

The MS Dhoni Story

GULU Ezekiel is one of Indias best known sports writers and authors with nearly forty years of experience in print, TV, radio and internet. He has previously been Sports Editor at Asian Age, NDTV and indya.com and is the author of over a dozen sports books on cricket, the Olympics and table tennis. Gulu has also contributed extensively to sports books published from India, England and Australia and has written for over a hundred publications worldwide since his first article was published in 1980.

Based in New Delhi from 1991, in August 2001 Gulu launched GE Features, a features and syndication service which has syndicated columns by Sir Richard Hadlee and Jacques Kallis (cricket) Mahesh Bhupathi (tennis) and Ajit Pal Singh (hockey) among others. He is also a familiar face on TV where he is a guest expert on numerous Indian news channels as well as on foreign channels and radio stations.

This is his first book for Westland Limited and is the fourth revised and updated edition of the book first published in September 2008 and follows the third edition released in September 2013.

Website: www.guluzekiel.com

Twitter: @gulu1959

First Published by Westland Publications Private Limited in 200861, 2nd Floor, Silverline Building, Alapakkam Main Road, Maduravoyal, Chennai 600095

Westland and the Westland logo are the trademarks of Westland Publications Private Limited, or its affiliates.

Text Copyright Gulu Ezekiel, 2008

ISBN: 9788193655641

The views and opinions expressed in this work are the authors own and the facts are as reported by him, and the publisher is in no way liable for the same.

All rights reserved

Typeset by Ram Das Lal

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

I dedicate this book and all the others before this to my beloved parents Prof. Joe Ezekiel (1921-1993) and Mrs Khorshed Joe Ezekiel (1927-2016) who supported me through thick and thin and moulded me into the person I am today.

CONTENTS

WHAT CAN YOU say of my good buddy MS thats not already been said and written?

From the first time we met and I saw him play he reminded me so very much of my younger days. He had the same enthusiasm and attacking instincts as a batsman that I had. All credit that this young man made his mark playing cricket in Ranchi, a place Ive never unfortunately visited.

There must have been so few opportunities but MS forced the selectors to take notice of his all-round abilities, primarily as a very attacking batsman. Supremely fit and extremely gifted with hand/eye/feet co-ordination he took to wicket-keeping and over the years worked so hard to improve his skills that he can be classed now as one of the finest batsmen/wicket-keepers of all time.

When Dhoni introduced his wife Sakshi to me, he told her, This is Farokh Engineer. If he was still playing cricket, I would still be stamping tickets at the Kharagpur railway station.

Ive always considered MS as a supreme all-round package. His shrewd captaincy and his bold approach to the game have made him one of the most popular Indian cricketers of all time. No wonder they have made a film on him. Ive heard some people and ex-Test cricketers saying he was lucky in many ways. But of course we have all needed Lady Luck some time or other in our careerssome more than othersbut MS has certainly grabbed his opportunities and proved he is one of the best. His record of 100 stumpings in ODIs alone is hugely commendable and his overall record speaks for itself.

I am delighted senior journalist and author Gulu Ezekiel has brought out the fourth edition of his biography of Dhoni first published in 2008 and I know he has done justice to his subject.

When some cynics are talking about his retirement I see him looking fitter than ever. More power to him.

Farokh Engineer (India, 1962 to 1975)

Manchester, England, September 2017

THE THIRD EDITION of this book had July 2013 as the cutoff. Now four years later it was felt it was time for another update of this book first published in 2008. Mahendra Singh Dhoni continues to be in the news and it appears his place is secure till at least the 2019 World Cup in England.

With cricket now being played the year round in India with the advent of the IPL in the summer months since 2008, it was felt the India-Australia limited overs matches ending in mid-October 2017 should be the cutoff for this fourth edition.

I would like to thank my schoolboy hero Farokh Engineer for readily agreeing to write the foreword and Colin Evans in helping out with it and thanks also to my readers and publishers who made this book a runaway best-seller right from the first edition.

Gulu Ezekiel

New Delhi, October 2017

MAHENDRA SINGH DHONIS rise to fame from small-town obscurity to an icon of Indian sport in the span of just four years is one of the greatest feel-good stories of recent times.

Dhoni is arguably the most radical and influential Indian cricketer since the emergence of Kapil Dev in the late 70s. The positive impact he has had on Indian cricket is the modern-day version of a fairy-tale come true.

What Dhoni has brought to Indian cricket is the courage of his convictions. It is youth power at is most positive and potent.

Never having attended a formal coaching camp during his formative years, Dhonis rough-and-ready methods never really got ironed out of his system. Which is just as well since his very rusticity is where his appeal lies and what pulls in the crowds.

Here is a leader Indias captain in ODIs and Twenty20 (T-20, T20) since 2007 and Test cricket since 2008who makes bold decisions and never wavers from his path.

The fact that the results have in the main turned out to be positive is no mere stroke of luck. Like Kapil a quarter of a century earlier, Dhoni is instinctive, going by his gut feeling.

Over-strategising and forward planning are not for the likes of Kapil and MSD. They are cricketers who play straight from the heart rather than the head and what counts most of all is that they always lead by example. This acts as an inspiration for their teammates who are then willing to walk on hot coals for their leader.

Kapil amply demonstrated this when he led India to its epochal Prudential World Cup victory in England in 1983. Once he rescued the side with that memorable 175 not out against Zimbabwe, he demonstrated to his team that no challenge was too great.

Successfully defending 183 in the final at Lords against the might of the West Indies batting line-up was the icing on the cake.

Dhoni faced a similarly daunting task at the inaugural Twenty-20 World Cup in South Africa in 2007. Like Kapils Devils in 1983, India began as no-hopers. They had played just one T-20 game before the tournament and were woefully lacking in experience.

For the captain himself it was an even tougher task. This was his first assignment at the helm and with a raw, largely untested side under his command, it was left to the young wicket-keeper/batsman to keep his cool and marshal his resources astutely.