Mahendra Singh Dhoni led India to an unexpected victory at the inaugural ICC World Twenty20, but now he has tougher tasks ahead - negotiating 12 ODIs against Australia and Pakistan.
G Rajaraman writes in Outlook magazine that Dhoni's candour masks a rush of kinetics.
Dhoni realises that leading Team India is going to be one of the most challenging jobs in world cricket. "Yes, I think it is. It seriously is, I am telling you," he says. To be sure, along with startling reflexes and wrists of supple steel that defies coaching-book proprieties, the 26-year-old brings a native sense of humour that will help him in the teeth of the storms and the stresses that go with the job.
Meanwhile the Twenty20 triumph has convinced Makarand Waingankar that Dhoni is a born leader and should now be appointed Indian captain for all forms of cricket. He writes in the Hindu
Indian cricket was gradually getting into the mode of cricket of the ’60s and ’70s when a player could be hidden on the field.
No longer will such players dream of playing the game. It was ‘a run saved is run scored’. But from now on, it will be ‘a boundary saved, a run scored’.
