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About the book Mahi: The Story of India's Most Successful Captain charts the dynamic rise of one of India's most talented and charismatic cricketers and captains. From playing tennis-ball cricket in Ranchi and Kharagpur to his patented helicopter shot, Dhoni has come a long way with his grit and determination. With best ODI and Test records among all Indian captains to date, it is his simple and down-to-earth attitude that works wonders for the captain as well as the team. ROLI BOOKS This digital edition published in 2014 First published in 2013 by The Lotus Collection An Imprint of Roli Books Pvt. Ltd M-75, Greater Kailash- II Market New Delhi 110 048 Phone: ++91 (011) 40682000 Email: [email protected] Website: www.rolibooks.com Copyright © Shantanu Guha Roy 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, print reproduction, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Roli Books. Any unauthorized distribution of this e- book may be considered a direct infringement of copyright and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly. Cover Design: Bonita Vaz-Shimray Cover Photographs: Getty Images Insert Pictures Courtesy: Rajesh Kumar/Sen Studios, Getty Images, Shantanu Guha Ray, the Hindu Archive eISBN : 978-93-5194-012-8 All rights reserved. This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form or cover other than that in which it is published. For Keya and Bonny my strength in life Contents Prologue A Humble Beginning Tennis Ball Cricket Hard Life in Hills, Glory in Plains First Job Blues The Buck Stops Here Fireworks in the Desert A Phenomenon Called Dhoni Chatty Selectors vs Dhoni Power Wanderers Knight: The T20 World Cup Wife for Dhoni Jharkhand Push: Dhoni is our Boy It’s my Night, India’s Might: The ICC World Cup A Lone King About the Author Prologue No one leaves business reporting for sports writing. My friends were flabbergasted when I told them of my intention to join ESPN Star Sports in the summer of 2002. But why, they asked. For the love of sports, I replied. However, not a soul was impressed, largely because the shift was not routine. In India, reporters have rarely moved from sports journalism to business reporting and back again. In short, I could sense that my friends were convinced I was messing up my career. Why not the net? Get into the web world, argued some. Those were the days of the net revolution. The bubble was just starting to take shape. And the big bucks portals were on a mad talent hunt, offering pots of cash. There was Hungama, Tehelka, and even Naradmuni. So why join a sports channel? But I was totally convinced that it was the right move for me. At the end of the day, it was about reporting, right? Backing me to the hilt was the person who brought the offer, my former colleague, Joy Bhattacharjya. Until he joined ESPN after a stint with Transworld International (TWI), Joy had been a hands-on man for computer applications, television programming, quizzes, and dating. Joy was brilliant in whatever he did. To me, he was the quintessential lover boy. To him, I was the quintessential newshound. Joy’s advice was simple but worth a million dollars: he was convinced that nothing would sell for the next three decades in Indian sports except cricket. The added advantage for ESPN Star Sports was that the world’s largest sports broadcaster had the bulk of the overseas cricket rights and the Indian cricket team was to play more matches abroad that year (2002). The situation remains largely unchanged. Star Sports has the cricket that matters for Indians. And if you are with a sports channel, it means you virtually crisscross the globe with the game and the cricketers. I signed on the dotted line, without realizing that the employment contract initially offered the job for just three months. Ujjwal Sarao, the genial HR head of ESPN Star Sports then had a great laugh before changing it into a year. It meant that I had a year to prove myself. ESPN Star Sports with its 27-camera coverage of cricket was a completely new world for me. It was fun from the first day. I had – in the formative years of my career – covered football, but eventually dropped it because both the game, and the players were headed nowhere in India. I presume it is pretty much the same story now, despite what many claim is a ‘heroic’ attempt by NCP leader Praful Patel to push football to a larger platform by bringing in some of the world’s top stars, including Lionel Messi. But it’s a wholly different world when you talk of cricket. It is because cricket bought more success to India than any other sport. Till M.S. Dhoni led his team to the World Cup success in 2011, the 1983 World Cup win was the only one etched in the minds of millions. But India already had started acquiring center stage in world cricket under Saurav Ganguly. Bengal’s classy left hander led a team that won the Natwest Series in 2002, excelled in the 2003 ICC World Cup, the Test-ODI series Down Under and the ice-breaking Pakistan series. Cricket brought loads of cash for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and it became the richest body of its kind in the world. In 2008, Dhoni’s boys had won the inaugural T20 World Cup in faraway South Africa. Cricket was on an upswing. On the other hand, football and hockey got India virtually nothing. An interesting piece of research from cricket historian Boria Mazumdar shows the 1975 World Hockey Cup win in Kuala Lumpur came when black-and-white television sets were a luxury. So the generation that loved hockey could not remember the win and help the game grow. The 1982 Delhi Asian Games 1-7 loss to Pakistan made matters worse. Naturally, the generation that followed wasn’t interested in anything else but cricket. Perhaps it was the reason why ESPN Star Sports – now two separate entities post the split – remained doubly focused on cricket. The channel wanted nothing but cricket from India. At times, working out of their swanky office in Singapore, I wondered whether there was anything else than the willow game that pushed the channel’s operations in South Asia. There was none. Football was also a priority for the channel but it was only international football, especially the English Premier League and La Liga. There was also Formula1, PGA tours and some second-hand wrestling, Total Action Network (TNA) that looked pale in front of those high-voltage shows of World Wrestling Federation (WWF) telecast on a rival channel. But the big cash for the channel was in the willow game. Initially, I rebelled and spent some time pushing football from Kolkata. Joy pushed other stuff. Being a quizzer himself, he had already plugged The ESPN Quiz Show, developed a new format for the national game – the Premier Hockey League (PHL) – and conceptualized fabulous shows like Pehelwan (it was India’s answer to WWF, which did not see the light of the day because the channel could not find any wrestlers to match the ones offered by WWF). Joy also planned Search for Sachin but again found no one offering the greenbacks for such an expensive project. I was instrumental in signing on Saurav Ganguly – then the skipper of the Indian cricket team – for the Samsung Cricket Show, but it sank without a trace because Ganguly, unlike Navjot Singh Sidhu or Ajay Jadeja, wasn’t charismatic on the sets. Worse, he – perhaps because of his position – remained boringly diplomatic before the camera. And what was most painful was his routine skipping of recording schedules, a nightmare for the producers. Another show, Sachin Speaks, an expensive one for ESPN Star Sports where the Master Blaster talked about his game and life, tanked without a trace, ostensibly because India’s top cricketer’s squeaky speech was not great television. Even the best of the ebullient Harsha Bhogle failed to push it up the TRP ladder. All this increasingly convinced me that only live cricket – or anything associated with the live version of the game – was the way forward with Indian audiences. I junked football and plunged headlong into cricket. My first experience – it was a bizarre one – with the world of cricket and cricketers came on the eve of the 2003 World Cup in Johannesburg. As we all waited in a semi-lit hall where captains of the participating teams were to be assembled on a stage and the World Cup trophy displayed, I noticed a harassed South African agent of LG desperately asking for help. He wanted a camera unit to record statements of some cricketers – he didn’t say whom he wanted – about the South Korean white goods giant, the chief sponsor for the World Cup. Everyone balked at the guy, refusing him outright. It was not news, and worse, it was for a commercial purpose. No one agreed. A few members from Pakistan television channel wanted instant cash for the work. The LG official rebuffed their demand in sheer disgust. I stepped up and offered help. The portly man heaved a sigh of relief and instantly ushered me into a hall where I could not believe what I saw: captains of the participating teams were waiting patiently for the camera unit to utter one line for LG and head for the stage.