Meet Some of the Dhoni’s friends

The Captain Courageous the world is celebrating went through many twists and turns, having started from a state side that struggled to go beyond the preliminary rounds. From a teammate whose chocolates he had whacked to skippers startled by his calm almost a decade ago, from the gear seller in Calcutta who got the country’s most popular ad face his first endorsement to the coach who shaped an uncut diamond in a railway yard in Kharagpur, this is Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s journey from being a struggler to a leader

DAY INDIA CAME CLOSE TO LOSING CRICKETER DHONI

Rana Chowdhury

Former Bihar and Bengal batsman whose association with Dhoni started with a limited-overs tournament in Dhanbad in 1999Today’s Captain Cool had lost his fuse on a train from Howrah 11 summers ago and the country had almost lost Mahendra Singh Dhoni the cricketer.

Ignored for the East Zone squad, an emotional 19-year-old had dragged his kit bag towards the door of a running train to fling it away for good. If MSD lifted the World Cup on Saturday night, the nation should thank his former Ranji teammates from Bihar who had wrenched the bag and put it back under the seat of the Jamshedpur-bound train.

“Every one of us was trying to convince him that he was too good to be ignored for long,” says Rana Chowdhury, a couple of years senior to Dhoni in the state team. Dhoni didn’t drop his kit and India didn’t drop yet another World Cup. In 2000, Jharkhand had still not been carved out of Bihar. Rana, 33, from Kulti in Bengal’s Burdwan district, had shared the Bihar dressing room with Dhoni for a year before returning to his home state. That uncontrolled anger was an exception, Rana adds. “Even then he was very composed. That was all the more reason why we rushed to calm him down.” That man calmed the nerves of 1.2 billion people on Saturday night with some ferociously wristy drives in the biggest stage of cricket. “He was always very friendly and mixed equally well with teammates and opponents. He’d never get flustered. If bowlers sledged him, he gave them a twinkling smile — something that irritated them beyond words. His only retort would be a smash hit to the fence,” Rana recalls.

As Dhoni went hammer and tongs at the bowlers having opened the innings in a four-day Ranji match, the coach sent word asking him to settle down. Twelfth man Rana ran up to the middle at CC&FC in Calcutta.

“He smiled at me and said ‘Tereko jo bolne ke liye bola gaya woh tu bol diya na? Ab wapas ja (You’ve said what you were asked to… now go back)’,” says Rana. Dhoni slammed five boundaries the next over. “The coach hauled me up: ‘Yeh kya chal raha hai? Tu ne ulta nahin na bol diya (What’s going on? Sure you didn’t give him the wrong message)’?” Dhoni got a 68 in no time against Assam in that match.

The steel in his innings in the World Cup final is an asset acquired with time. The Leader Dhoni knows to sacrifice flair for utility.

The lesson Rana learnt from his association with Dhoni? Keep your chocolates safe.

An inflated bill stumped him as he checked out of a Calcutta hotel after a Wills Trophy tie in 1999. The front office wanted Rana to pay for the chocolates in his refrigerator but he hadn’t had any. A tiff was around the corner when

Dhoni appeared and said ever so casually that he had eaten all of them.

“He loved chocolates. He also loved his tandoori chicken. He had one full by himself.”

MORNING OR EVENING, NEVER TIRED AT THE NETS

Subrata Kumar Banerjee

Coached Dhoni the ticket collector in Kharagpur

You can’t beat him at sincerity and dedication, says Banerjee.

“When he joined us, he was a Ranji player but still he could never have enough of the game. He practised with the senior team in the morning and returned in the evening to play with the school kids in my academy,” smiled Dhoni’s Baghada.

“He’d throw a soft ball at a wall and practise wicketkeeping on his own. When he would tire of this, he’d slowly come up to me and say if he could keep wickets at the children’s session. Eventually, he’d bowl and, when everyone else was done, he’d ask if he could bat.”

Baghada would tell him “what good will it be playing against the kids”?

Dhoni would say “just 10 minute knock karega” and go on and on.

Was he ever stern with his pupil? Once, during an inter-railway tournament in

Nagpur in 2002-03, when captain Dhoni was with his friends in the opposite side more often than not and his own team was floundering. “After he spent a night with them, I called him aside and told him

‘Mahi, you ought to be ashamed of your behaviour. You should be setting an example for the whole team’,” said Banerjee. Dhoni scored a 78-ball 156, a 92 and an unbeaten 125 in the remaining matches and his friends’ were among those mauled.

Tournament over, Dhoni asked: “Baghada, aap santusht huye hai na?”

On another occasion, when Banerjee was bowling to Dhoni in the nets and he was just blocking, the coach fished for a compliment and asked how well he was bowling. Mahi said he was wonderful even at that age and asked him to use a newer ball for more purchase off the wicket. “When I got carried away and changed the ball, he sent it out of the stadium, winked and said the old one wouldn’t have gone very far.”

I DON’T DRINK, YOU DON’T DRINK

Robin Kumar

Dhoni’s skipper in the South Eastern Railway team with whom he had shared a one-room tenement in Kharagpur

A prankster and a fantastic cricketer, says Robin about his former colleague.

“Dhoni never touched liquor.

But some of us did. One day, while we were returning home around 1am, he drew a straight line on the road and

we tried walking along it for 45 minutes,” says Robin.

He met Dhoni after a long time in 2006, a year after he had got married and his friend had debuted for the Indian Test team. When Robin showed his now famous friend his wife’s photograph, Dhoni exclaimed: “Tereko gori ladki kahanse mil gayi (How did you manage a fair girl)!”

The next question: “S***, tu ne mujhe bulaya nahin!” Robin said he no longer had the famous Dhoni’s address and MSD put on the smile he does after stumping batsmen: “You should have written Mahendra Singh Dhoni and left it anywhere in Ranchi. It would have reached me.”

Dhoni loved soft drinks and gulped down a couple of bottles every day. “There was this friend of ours who would drink alcohol a lot. Mahi once asked him not to drink, at least that evening. He in turn asked Mahi to stay off his drink. That evening, both had lassi.”

Robin thinks Dhoni’s game has changed. “Six years ago, he wouldn’t have been calm enough to take his team home in a World Cup final.”

BRANDWAGON STARTS ITS ROLL FROM SHYAMBAZAR

Somnath Dasgupta

Owner of B. Dasgupta and Co, the sports goods shop in Shyambazar that got Dhoni his first endorsement deal

Dhoni was a regular Ranji player for Bihar when he walked into the small shop for a pair of half spikes.

“It was in 2000. He wanted half spikes but could not afford an Adidas, Nike or Reebok, which would come for around Rs 3,000. He picked up a pair made by Taurus, a

Jalandhar company,” says Dasgupta. Sehwag, Harbhajan and Yuvraj had earned their India caps by then.

Dhoni was yet to land the job with South Eastern Railway — he joined in February 2001.

When Dhoni returned to the shop later that year, Dasgupta promised to arrange for him a sponsorship. The endorsement bandwagon started rolling in a slip of a north Calcutta shop. Dhoni’s association with sports gear maker Beat All Sports (BAS) paved the way for the giants in the trade. “Don’t think he got any money for it. They just provided him cricket gear free,” says Dasgupta. “But you need to start somewhere.”

With time, Dhoni moved on to SS bats. “You see a Reebok sticker on the blade but the edge has TON printed on it. That is an SS brand. Reebok has made an exception and allowed Dhoni to use the actual maker’s name somewhere on the bat,” says Dasgupta.

Dhoni approached him at the Eden in 2007 to fix a bat that he had used in the 2007 T20 World Cup. “The toe had split but he liked the bat so much I had to bind it for him.”

FIRST SIGNS OF THE FEARLESS CRICKETER

Devang Gandhi

Dhoni’s skipper in his first appearance for East Zone

Courage, Devang reckons, is what set Dhoni apart. “It is this courage that made him promote himself up the order in the World

Cup final. ”In the 2003-2004 Deodhar Trophy final, Central Zone led by Mohammad Kaif had got around 345 in 50 overs. “Dhoni was to open for us. I asked him ‘kya hoga’? He nonchalantly said ‘Aap chinta mat karo DG Bhai, hum log jeetenge,” recalls Devang. Dhoni scored 80-odd and the East won. “He used to hit the cricket ball much harder than Virender Sehwag does now,” says Devang.

Later that season, then India skipper Sourav Ganguly had asked Devang what he thought of Dhoni. “Sourav wanted to try Dhoni as a wicketkeeper in the Duleep Trophy final though he was playing the tournament as a batsman and Deep Dasgupta was wearing the big gloves.”

A SMALL STEP TO STARDOM — INDIA A

Pranab Roy

National selector from East Zone when Dhoni made his ODI debut

Fellow selectors had allegedly called him mad for backing Dhoni as the India keeper at a time he did not even keep for the East.“It wasn’t easy. Bengal’s Deep Dasgupta was the India keeper then. But I took a risk in the Duleep Trophy final versus North Zone in 2003-04 and pushed for Dhoni.

The selectors had come down to see him but I did not tell Dhoni they were there especially for him. He started by hooking Nehra’s first ball for six and got 70-odd.

He kept well, too, and that was the start of the road,” says Roy.

“Deep will surely forgive me after Dhoni got us the Cup.”

Dhoni was next selected for a couple of India A tours, including a tri-series involving Pakistan A and Kenya in which he got 362 runs in 7 matches at 72.40.

These knocks captured the imagination of skipper Sourav. The rest, as they say, is…