Mahendra Singh Dhoni and India’s Quest for the 2019 World Cup

Sometimes you go on a ride with a team - take the New England Patriots after all the nonsense over Deflategate. Sometimes you go on a ride with an individual. Right now, whether they realize it or not, Indian cricket fans, all 1.3 billion of them, are on the ride of their lives with MS Dhoni, and it's not necessarily a ride that will end with Dhoni lifting the 2019 World Cup. In life, you don't always get fairy tale endings.

 

If I were to ask any Indian cricket fan if they would rather win the World Cup without Dhoni, or lose it with Dhoni, I think most would say they would rather lose it with Dhoni and I do believe this is the right answer because right now they're on a journey and when you're on a journey you have to see it to its ultimate conclusion.

 

India has won two World Cups in its history, one in 1983 and one in 2011. The 1983 Triumph remains THE triumph - for it was won in England under alien conditions with an unfancied team against opponents who were and remain the stuff of legends, the almost unbeatable West Indian team of the 80s.

 

For those Indian fans born after 1983, the 2011 World Cup win remains their sole taste of success at the world stage in the 50-over game. For the longest time in the 90s and 2000s the stigma of defeat hung around the Indian cricket team. Sure they won games at home but even with players of the stature of Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, and Sachin Tendulkar, success overseas remained rare and elusive, and successive World Cups came and went without the team lifting the trophy. When under Dhoni, a young Indian team won the 2007 World T20 Championship, that was perhaps the sign that things were about to change for the better. And sure enough in 2011 came the long-awaited 50-over World Cup win. However, the 1983 World Cup win remains the more cherished one because it was more unexpected, came against tougher opposition, and was won in alien conditions. The 2011 win was welcome but came at home where they were expected to win, and who did they beat on the way to it? Australia, who were a pale imitation of the all-conquering Australian teams of the past, Pakistan who were a far cry from the Pakistani teams of the 90s, and Sri Lanka whose best bowler was on the verge of retirement. With all this in mind, Dhoni has pushed himself to be available for the 2019 World Cup all the while fighting Father Time who, at 37, is knocking on his door. After failing to defend the Cup in Australia in 2015, Dhoni set his sights on the 2019 World Cup to be played in England. These past four years he has stayed away from Test cricket and focused on his fitness and white ball cricket. But whereas a man can still maintain high fitness levels as he approaches 40, hand-eye coordination is not something that he can control, and the signs have been there for all to see. Dhoni, these days, takes longer to get going, and his beard, when he keeps one, has gone Snow White. Meanwhile, youngsters like Rishabh Pant are pushing for his place.

 

Sadly, I don't think we are going to get a fairy tale ending here. Cricket fans, all over, are in for a bittersweet climax to the story of Mahendra Singh Dhoni. To put it bluntly, I think Dhoni will get injured during the 2019 World Cup, Dinesh Karthik will take his place, and India will fall short in their bid for glory. But I urge fans to maintain their sense of equilibrium - sometimes the most important thing isn't that you achieved the goal that you set out to achieve, it is that you went on the ride and bittersweet endings have their own charm. Oftentimes, they are far more memorable than fairytale endings.