Dhoni, then and now

Dhoni started his international cricket in 2004 against Srilanka. It was a bad start of the career of this resilient captain, who had misjudged the second ball of Muralidharan and adjudged LBW by umpire. But it was not over for this Jharkhandi boy, who later on, made his own identity in international cricket by showing different class of maturity level in very early cricketing career.

The knock of 148 runs in Vishakhapatnam against Pakistan and 183 runs in Jaipur against Srilanka blew the arrival of new hero in international cricket with containment of different class in batting style. Indian cricket found a new wicketkeeper all rounder, who can do justice in front as well as back of wicket.

With the aim of achieving the status of Gilchrist in international cricket, the man of Ranchi started playing this game. In five years of his cricketing career, Indian cricket has been lucky enough to see the different status of Dhoni. From a long hair boy with zeal to do more to the cool headed captain leading his team from front.

In early days, he used to play attacking cricket without taking any kind of pressure on his shoulder. After playing for a year or two, he started playing the role of a finisher. He and Yuvraj Singh emerged as a threat in one-day cricket for oppositions. At a time, it had become a regular practice for these two to guide the team to victory.
In 2007, when Indian trio of Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly had decided not to play first ICC Twenty-20 world cup, Indian selectors were searching for a player, who could guide the team, consist of youngsters. Selectors had no clue because, Virender Sehwag, who was being considered as a future captain, was out of form and fighting for place in the team. Indian team was playing in England, when Selectors announced the name of Mahendra Singh Dhoni as captain for Twenty-20 world cup. It was unbelievable news for Dhoni but true.
Indian team won the first Twenty-20 World Cup in South Africa. The captaincy of Dhoni was acclaimed by all the greats of cricketing fraternity.
Indian cricket could not celebrate this win for long as Rahul Dravid, resigned from the captaincy of One-day and Test cricket after England Series. Rumors started flowing in and around the each corner of cities on different names for the prolific post of captain.
Once, Mohammad Azharuddin had compared Indian captaincy with the blade of knife. He had told, Indian captaincy was like a blade of knife where, there was no chance for anyone to make any mistake. After boggling on different names, finally, selectors came up with two names, Anil Kumble as the captain of test cricket and Dhoni for One-day and Twenty-20.
The stature of Dhoni was increasing day and night. Suddenly, he started being seen on each poster hanged on shops and showrooms. Corporate industry took him on their noses. Suddenly, he started demanding more than a crore for one advertisement.
But, it was like a dream came true for this Jharkhandi, who came to know that, none other than little master suggested his name for the post of captain.
Now, Mahendra Singh Dhoni leads Indian Cricket in all three format of game and took team to a different level. Today’s Indian team is a mixture of young as well as experienced. At one point of time, team gets motivation by the presence of Tendulkar then at other time, it learns to fight till last ball by seeing the fighting attitude of Mr. Captain.