Dhoni – Does he practice Zen Budhism?
Dhoni appears a very cool customer as a captain. He is very aggressive no doubt. But, he amazingly hides that entire aggression on the field and makes his action speak rather than gestures.
I have watched him lead almost 25 one day internationals and four tests and the entire T20 world cup in South Africa. There have been several tense situations in these matches.
Some of these tense moments were while he was at the batting crease when if he lost cool he would have most likely lost his wicket too and put India in a deeper trouble. Then there were tense moments when we were fielding, classic example being the last over of the T20 world cup final when it appeared that the Pakistanis will pull off a victory of the last over of the match.
Not only did he maintain his cool but also demonstrated amazing cricketing brain to set an attacking field while giving confidence to a new comer to bowl the decisive over of the match.
We have had many captains for the Indian team over the past thirty years (since when I am watching cricket actively). There have been very shrewd captains, very lucky captains and very aggressive and emotional captains leading the Indian team in these thirty years.
None however even come close to how Dhoni is leading the team. The answer to this attitude came when I heard his interview to Cricinfo. He said, he does get tense but doesn’t show it on the field for the simple reason that he doesn’t want that tension come in the way of the performance of his team mates. That to me is one of the greatest thing he is able to do.
To my knowledge, such captaincy has only been seen with Arjuna Ranatunga when he was marshalling the Sri Lankan team. I have never seen Arjuna Ranatunga lose cool on the field except on very few occasions that too when he was putting across his view to the umpires.
Looking at they way Dhoni leads one would think if he practices Zen Budhism which is said to help people to control emotions irrespective of situations.
If he continues the same way, there can be no doubt on his ability to take Indian team to greater heights in the days to come. We have to wait and see if he is able to continue with this cool leadership style even when the expectations grow manifold amongst the cricket mad Indian public. As an ardent Indian cricket fan, I would pray for him to continue the same way!
Hats off to Mahendra Singh Dhoni and all the very best.
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