Players like Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin blossomed under his captaincy. It has been nearly 14 years since Dhoni made his debut. Dhoni has retired from Test cricket as well as stepped down as captain in the shorter formats. As he enters his twilight years of his career, we look back at the 6 things we miss about the young Dhoni who made quite an impression on everyone watching him.
#1 Long Hair
When Dhoni first burst on to the cricketing scene, he was known as a swashbuckling batsman with a not-so-usual technique. The other thing that quite stood out were his long hair. He had earlier dyed them golden but later colored them black and straightened them, resembling his friend John Abraham’s look in Dhoom. His long hair became quite a rage and even prompted Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to praise his hairstyle and asked Dhoni to abstain from changing it.
#2 Promotion up the order
India now has the most settled top 3 and the world’s best batman at number 3. Slow run rate is never a problem but there were times when India used to manage scores mostly between 250 and 300. Thus, the team management used to shuffle the batting order to bring power hitters up the order.
One such case was promotion of Dhoni to number 3 and the effect in those matches was quite evident. Dhoni played two of his most memorable innings of 148 vs Pakistan and 183* vs Sri Lanka batting at number 3.
#3 Death overs bowling surprises
Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar are the among the world’s best death over specialists and thus, handle the responsibilities of the last few overs in both ODIs and T20s. But during Dhoni’s captaincy, there were many times when he took everyone by surprise and introduced bowlers to bowl the death overs who were not usually entrusted with such responsibilities.
No one can forget the heart pounding moment when Joginder Sharma was handed the last over in 2007 T20 World Cup final when Harbhajan Singh had an over left. Similar was the case in 2013 Champions Trophy final when Dhoni handed the ball over to Ishant Sharma to bowl the 17th over even though he was the most expensive Indian bowler in the match.
#4 Helicopter shot
One of the most unorthodox cricketing shots is the Helicopter shot introduced in international cricket by Dhoni. It requires a high back-lift , brute force and precise timing to execute the shot and the results are often unbelievable. The shot was regularly played by Dhoni during his initial days and was also seen in IPL. But since long, we haven’t seen the shot played from Dhoni’s bat.
#5 Bike rides across the stadium
One of the most iconic memories in an Indian cricket fan’s mind were the bike rides on which Dhoni went in the stadium after the post-match presentations In those days, the Man of the Match were often awarded with bikes from the sponsors. It didn’t matter who won the award went to, MS Dhoni would take took gifted bike for a spin with other players as pillion.
After being appointed the captain, such sights were very rare to see. Dhoni gave the fans a moment of nostalgia when he took Virat Kohli and co for a ride in Jasprit Bumrah’s MOTM- awarded car in final game of the ODI series in Sri Lanka in 2017.
#6 Yuvi- Dhoni bromance
Indian team has quite a few bromances but none more loved than the Yuvi-Dhoni bromance. Yuvraj-Dhoni are India’s seventh most successful batting pair in ODIs in terms of runs with 10 century stands. Their camaraderie on and off the field was quite visible and created quite a few anecdotes. Some of them include Yuvi pulling the leg of Dhoni when Mahi first joined the Indian team and their linkup rumors with Deepika Padukone.
Though the pinnacle of the bromance was perhaps when they shared the joy of taking India home in the World Cup final at Wankhede in 2011, with MS Dhoni winning the Man of the Match in the final while Yuvraj Singh was adjudged Man of the Series for his consistency with both bat and ball.
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