This may be called as a real story of going ‘Rags to Regime’. A small town youth, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, has proved it when he lifted the Twenty20 World cup for India on Monday evening. He had the fate to lift the World cup what Sachin, Saurav and Dravid lacked in their entire cricketing career.
No one could match with the courage showed by Kapil Dev when his team defeated mighty West-Indies team in 1983 to lift the World cup for the first time. But, Dhoni has definitely come quite close to the living legend with an amazing debut as captain.
The 26-year-old young man from Jharkhand had already received admiration from many cricket pundits and legends because of his captaincy. He had done it even before India won the Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa. The best part of his personality, as captain of the winning side, was that the success did not straight to his mind.
Dhoni’s celebrations were as sensible as his captaincy. He took off his shirt, but not to wave it around but to hand it over to a little Indian fan. There was due respect for India’s first World Cup win. This was an indirect indication to Indian cricket legends that the Indian team did it because the nation kept faith in the young team, the mixture of experience and talent.
There was a clear mixture of the vision, clear thinking and a cool head looking in the eyes of Dhoni. He showed great leadership qualities in profusion through out the tournament. The positive or negative outcome of the matches actually didn’t frighten Dhoni. This was the real leadership show and that’s been his strength.
The message was clear from the captain to the men in Blue…Don’t worry much about the outcome, just play on and the World Cup will be ours. There was no baggage, no ego problems, the team was enthusiast to prove their talent and they demonstrated in abundance.
Dhoni has lived life with his own reality check. He said:
Mein zyada sapne nahin dekhta hoon (I don’t dream too much). I firmly believe in living for the present, not dwelling in the past or future.
Jharkhand’s deputy CM Sudhir Mahato announced in Jamshedpur that the state government would honor Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni with 1st Jharkhand Ratna award. CM Madhu Koda also said that Dhoni would be the first recipient of the award, the highest award in the state.
The state government has introduced the award for the first time and it will be presented to Dhoni on the 7th Foundation Day celebration of the creation of state on November 15 at Ranchi.
Dhoni has not just passed the first test but he has earned a distinction also in a short duration of his cricketing career. Now, there will be more challenges to follow. The series with Australia at home is ahead in the next few months. And the World knows Australians are especially known to target the captain of opposition team.
