The word ‘Role model’ is defined by Google as someone whose behaviour, success and example is or can be emulated by others.
The personalities to look up to has evolved over the years. From generations of yore, when elders would encourage kids to look to freedom fighters who sacrificed their lives for the betterment of others to live examples of those who give joy.
The ones in the latter category are a varied lot. Sport personalities are part of it. Fundamentally, role models become examples because of their journeys. Some are privileged, others not quite. Most make it through a lot of sweat and toil, few make it through a lot of luck.
A character who has experienced a combination of both is MS Dhoni. In a chequered career, he has done enough for many to cite his example to look up as a role model in cricket.
The public already knows a lot about how he became who he became and often when the question of Dhoni’s most admirable quality arises, the one that gets more precedence over the others is his calmness on the field in everything that he does.
Granted that it is this calmness which has helped India win matches from situations that looked dead and buried and gone. It is this calmness in watching younger players make mistakes day-in-and-day-out and eventually become better that has helped India maintain their conveyor belt of top-notch cricketers.
But how much of Dhoni’s calmness would a coach wish to inculcate in an up-and-coming player?
In 2012, in an ODI against Australia at Adelaide, India found themselves chasing 270 for victory. Gautam Gambhir and the rest of the top order had laid a good foundation and the visitors found themselves needing 91 runs in 15 overs to win the game.
Dhoni walked out to bat at that stage and with Suresh Raina in the middle, India looked good to clinch the match. The required rate was just over six, which is extremely achievable on a normal day and you wouldn’t mind a new batsman taking a couple of overs to settle in before the launch begins.
Except, Dhoni’s laconic approach to the remainder of the chase made India’s task progress from achievable to challenging to daunting. He was 2 off 10 balls to start off with, the rate at that stage was 6.76. Then he was 8 off 24 balls. The rate had crept to 7.30.
At the end of the 45th over, India had reached 230/4. Dhoni 24 off 43 balls. The run-rate needed had stepped up to 8 runs an over.
Those who watched the game will know that Dhoni marshalled the lower-order and eventually took India home in the final over.
But his approach that day put India behind the 8-ball when they were in front of it. It made a situation that looked comfortable, difficult.
If a coach was watching this chase with a youngster, would he recommend him to play like that in such a scenario? Of course not. He would ask him to find ways to get singles. He would ask him to take a few more risks.
There wouldn’t be many coaches in the world who would be happy to see a young player put the team under a lot of pressure when it wasn’t needed at all and that game at Adelaide was a classic case of that.
The performance reaffirms the point of looking at the final result and throwing adulation on individuals winning us matches, rather than looking at it more introspectively.
In retrospect, as Dhoni’s ability to finish matches began to fade, one began to see him run out of options. He began leaving deliveries when the big shot was needed. Bowlers altered plans for him and he struggled. The lack of evolution in what made him unique was clear and evident.
Anti-media or media shy?
Along with putting in the hard yards to make it big, the other aspect that puts a player under the spotlight is the coverage he/she gets.
Not all of them always is positive. Nor is it all-out negative.
Over the years, however, the relations between Dhoni and media has changed, not necessarily for the better. There have been times when Dhoni has reacted in a way which indicated he was irked by what was written or spoken of him and the team.
The antipathy between Dhoni and the media perhaps reached its crest when he chose to announce his Test retirement via a BCCI press release and not in the press conference he had attended before the news broke.
Was it because he did not want the media to know about it or was he shy to say it in front of an audience? Whatever was the reason, it reflected what or how much he thought of them as those who played an integral role in his career.
Would a coach recommend a young player to develop such a relationship with the media at a nascent stage in his career? Perhaps not. As much as the media tends to carry all sort of stories about players, they also write in a positive light about them when they do something right.
The current scenario between the Indian players and the media is one where the former gets irked at the slightest pinpointing of their flaws or drawbacks in the game, an evolution from the time when Dhoni would be asked about his future and the response would range from weird to inconceivable.
Should a coach inculcate an attitude of developing a frosty relationship with the media? Surely not.
A sensible coach would recommend a younger player to refrain from reading and listening to everything concerning him in the outside world, but if a younger player is encouraged to cultivate a habit of completely guarding himself/herself against the press, then he/she would never know where he/she is going wrong, no matter how good a coach he has with him.
There is no denying Dhoni will go down as an all-time great in Indian and world cricket for his exploits in a 15-year long career. But there were aspects to his personality which, when, looked closely were tough to comprehend.
Like with Dhoni always, many never came out, but when some of them did become noticeable, it left a lot of us more perplexed than convinced.
