Kharagpur railway station to cricket’s ivory tower
There is an apocryphal story about the phoenix-like quality of Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s rise to stardom. When Sourav Ganguly’s men were getting hammered at the hands of Australia in the 2003 World Cup final in South Africa. a young ‘Mahi,’ as he is nicknamed, was still serving as a ticket collector at the Kharagpur Railway Station — a town about two hours of train ride away from Kolkata.
Four years down the line, Dhoni was a part of the Indian squad in the 2007 World Cup at the West Indies — a campaign which ended on a disastrous note and also signalled the exit of Greg Chappell as the coach. The same year, however, saw the U-turn in his fortunes when a initially reluctant India named a ragtag team to take part in the inaugural T20 World Cup and handed over the captaincy to Dhoni. The rest, as the cliche goes, is history. If the World Cup triumph ushered in the start of Dhoni’s unbelievable journey from strength to strength. While it’s common knowledge that no other captain had won all three major ICC white ball tournaments, the legacy of the man extended to much beyond these titles.
Though it’s a different matter that he went on to overtake Sachin Tendulkar post the 2011 World Cup in terms of endorsements and was the ‘richest’ cricketer in Forbes list for a number of years till Virat Kohli took over. So will it be IPL, Army and handpicked commercial commitments in the coming days? Looks like it, but you never know with Dhoni...