Dhoni: A man of cryptic answers and stoic silences
NEWDELHI:IPL 2019. It is the eve of the opening game between Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore. The vast gathering of media personnel await the press conferences of the two captains—csk’s MS Dhoni and RCB’S Virat Kohli.
Kohli enters the room first, and when he exits, anticipation builds for Dhoni’s arrival. Not just because he is the home captain, but also because he has rarely addressed the press since being relieved of India captaincy.
But in walks CSK coach Stephen Fleming. And this is how it would remain for the rest of the tournament, one that Dhoni and CSK were defending no less. Yet, he wouldn’t once address anyone beyond commentators.
By the end of his career, Dhoni’s stoic silence spoke more than his actual words. It wasn’t always like that. There was once a time when Dhoni was as flamboyant with his words in front of journalists as he was on the field beyond the conference room, often using his unique sense of humour to disarm the scribes.
Take for example the 2011-12 tour of Australia, which began with a debacle of a Test leg that ended 0-4 for India. As the Test stalwarts left for India and were replaced by younger members for the T20 series, Dhoni was asked how the mood in the dressing room had changed.
Not much, he replied, apart from the music: “From Kishore Kumar, we have gone to Sean Paul.” No amount of analysis could better sum up the change of guard, and culture, underway at that point in the team.
Sometimes he was plain cryptic. Like when the Indian team arrived a day late for the Napier Test during their 2009 tour of New Zealand, preferring to stay back in Auckland. Wouldn’t it affect the team’s preparations, he was asked. Dhoni smiled: “The mind doesn’t know if it’s Napier, or what you’re feeding it. You come and say this is Napier, it believes it is Napier. You say it is day, it believes it is day. If you see, it’s abstract,” he said, leaving his audience both flummoxed and entertained.
At other times Dhoni was so sincere that his answers seemed self-deprecatory. On the tour of South Africa in 2010-11, ahead of the Cape Town ODI Dhoni spoke of why he would prefer to bat first in a day-night match, because “the ball also tends to do a little under lights”. Until a journalist asked why that was—what was the logic behind the white ball being affected by the floodlights.
“To be honest, I also only say that because I heard the commentators say that on TV when I was young. So, I don’t really know,” he said, causing awe for his honesty, and laughter. Just like after a long tour with the series on the line, when he said: “I have three dogs at home. Even after losing a series or winning a series, they treat me the same way.”
The humour remained in his tone, for a short while at least, once these questions began probing for his retirement. After India were knocked out of the 2016 T20 World Cup in the semi-final, the ‘R’ word was brought up by an Australian journalist, who was summoned to the dais by Dhoni and made to pull up a chair beside him. “You want me to retire? I was hoping it was an Indian media guy because I can’t really say if you have a brother or a son who can play for India, who is a wicketkeeper,” Dhoni said while addressing the journalist.
Before India’s departure for the 2013 Champions Trophy in England, captain Dhoni was asked about the spot-fixing scandal that had rocked IPL that year. The questions were many. Dhoni remained mum right through it.
The straw that broke the camel’s back and ensured Dhoni would completely cut off from airing his views came just before he handed the reins of the Indian team over to Kohli.
After India’s narrow win against Bangladesh at the 2016 World Cup, Dhoni snapped. “I don’t think you are happy that India won. If you can’t analyse the reason why it was a low-scoring match, you shouldn’t ask such questions,” Dhoni retorted.
The silence has since been deafening. And it would remain that way until the very end. When he finally called it a day, Indian cricket’s most charismatic speaker allowed a short caption and a song by Mukesh to do all his talking.