Ugra write – “The cricket association structure in India must be commended for having allowed such an unorthodox and committed player from a small town with middle class trappings (he was a ticket collector) to rise to the very top!”

For close on a hundred years, Indian cricket was dominated by the city folks and the elites. Yes, there were exceptions such as P. Balu and his brothers who also left their mark. However, it was the educated elite from major metros who were the overwhelming majority of test and first class cricket teams. As were those who decided their fate – the selectors, managers, and coaches. [In some sense they were the “Brahmins” of Indian cricket, just for Razib’s benefit ;-)]

But the advent of big money and fame started to change all that. Cricketers assumed the status of demigods. Liberalization of the Indian economy and the Indian Premier League unleashed forces that swept away this old hierarchy. Now all that mattered was who could deliver on the field and who could attract the crowds – raw talent, skill, and sheer guts. It was at such a moment that Dhoni steps into the limelight. A decade before very unlikely that a bus conductor hailing from a small town could have dreamt of becoming a cricket star, unless it was in a Bollywood movie.

More power to the likes of M S Dhoni! A symbol of the emerging India.

Jaydeepsinh_Rathod,
I see you point – but i agree more with Saurav,

MSD never was a great captain in tests. On thing that cannot be ignored is MSD did not have spinners who could take 20 wickets from 2011- 2015. Pacers were patchy and when the batting was at a low from 2011-2015.

The issue with delaying retirement is more a Indian thing than specific to Dhoni. Even Sachin delayed his retirement unnecessarily by 2 yrs. Same is true for Indians other than Dravid.

Rathod sa….humbly disagree

On his test record, and y he quit test first

https://www.facebook.com/bhogleharsha/posts/an-article-i-wrote-when-dhoni-retired-from-test-cricket-relevant-still-i-dont-th/908419922621637/

“What he did in Test cricket was remarkable. He took his rustic game, the firm jab, the slash over point, and he squeezed more out of it than you would have thought possible. An average of 38 is excellent for someone who did as many squats behind the stumps as he did, for someone who had to be in the game always. It is very, very difficult to be a wicket-keeper, a captain and a batsman. He did it for 60 Tests. It was remarkable.

Yes, it wasn’t his favourite format and that isn’t a crime. It is extremely difficult to captain India overseas for it means taking 20 wickets quickly enough. He didn’t have Anil Kumble, no Harbhajan Singh or Zaheer Khan at their peak; no J Srinath, even S Sreesanth and RP Singh had fallen off a cliff. Eventually, every Indian captain overseas is forced to play a waiting game. You can show bluster for a while, you can set attacking fields but the scoreboard always tells the story. If you can’t take 20 wickets, you can’t win and Dhoni never had that. Towards the end, it affected the way he led the side. We all become creatures of our experience. He knew too that it was time to let someone less wounded by overseas defeats to take over.”

Lot of our memories are crowded by his failures in his latter half of the Captaincy. We shouldn’t forget Ganguly u compared him with even worse end to both captaincy and his career.

To make matters worse, after the tour BCCI refused to investigate into the debacle saying everything was fine with the team. Within a few months we had the Australian tour against a greenhorn home side and we lost 0-4 once again. And what also went hand in hand was the lack of accountability of Dhoni in all this. All this clearly broke the spell of Dhoni for me.

A few other things that followed later on only helped me keep the disdain for Dhoni. For example, he did not pick up Yuvraj for 2015 world cup in the final 16 or 18 for some inexplicable reason even though he was the main player responsible for the 2011 triumph. I mean he picked up players like Axar Patel, Stuart Binny and a few others, most of whom did not even get to play in the world cup. Was Yuvraj even worse than them ? It was quite ridiculous and I could understand the outburst of Yograj Singh that followed.

In fact Dhoni has rubbed the wrong way many other cricketers like Gambhir, Laxman, Harbhajan etc as well.

It is also worth mentioning that Ganguly nurtured quite a few young players like Yuvraj, Dhoni, Harbhajan, Raina, Gambhir, Sehwag etc who went on to become big players in their own right. What talents has Dhoni actually nurtured ? Can we name a single one ?

I also found it rather ridiculous of him that he decided to quit Test Cricket much earlier than the other forms. It seemed like Test Cricket mattered little to him in the list of priorities. Funnily enough, even now he hasn’t quit the IPL. But to each his own.

I also feel that Dhoni was more of a politician while I find Kohli much more dedicated, passionate, honest and sincere. I will definitely not miss Dhoni whatsoever.

Beyond a Boundary by CLR James for a non-Indian perspective.

IMO, all liberal writers whether Guha or Tharoor when they write on politics are mostly same and “rarely engages with the substance of the debate” , very superficial. Because they have to support a Congress world view which was neither too radical enough for the Left/Dalits nor too right wing enough for Hindu right. So their writings gets attacked by either side.

Inherently they know that Congress just struck lucky with Gandhi assassination, so they try to exaggerate both “Founding fathers” liberalism and competency , and try to paint a rosy picture of India of old, because that;s what they want India( and the Congress) to return to.

Anderson just stretched it out. By taking care of his body, concentrating on test matches, he just got better by extending his career. Not trying to do fancy stuff. So his in not really a surprise. A very classic old workhorse bowler of pre IPL era.

Broad is the real surprise though, he is so vanilla that one can;t even remember him in the host of just another lanky white English bowler who have come and fallen off the wayside. Especially considering that we is also of the pre- English cricket revolution era. An era where it was looking that English cricket will soon become the sports of brown people as whites were increasing switching off. For him to persevere and become better is just a joy to watch, especially considering how bad he was earlier.

That’s a fair criticism but more applicable to columns,tweets,talks (objective) less to long prose like India after Gandhi ( which suffers from other oversights) .
Some of his essays on cricket, environment, food n music are really good in my opinion.

In other words- when you take the politics out it makes ppl better writer