Did Dhoni or did he not? Stumble into the stadium, that is. Try as you might, you can?t get away from the impression that this everyday guy from Ranchi was whistling his way along when a pair of gloves materialised for him to keep stumps, followed by a piece of willow to whack a little red ball, and, presto, by the time he shook his head awake, he was a hero. He was this hot cricketer whose back colleagues couldn?t stop swatting, whose presence fans couldn?t get enough of, and whose endorsement brands were elbowing one another to get. Especially brands that, like him, don?t try too hard. Or work hard trying not to try too hard.
Whatever the story of his success, or ?asking rate? in the brand arena, Mahendra Singh Dhoni is the Brand Ambassador of the Year for 2007.
This was the year of the ICC World Cup for ODIs, and this charming cricketer scored a couple of ducks, retained his composure, and upended the tournament?s fashion sensibilities, much to the delight of fans (of something or the other). It was also the year of the first ever Twenty:20 World Cup, and once it came to the crunch, Indian Captain Dhoni tossed the ball for the last over of the final match to Joginder Sharma (of all bowlers), and saw Pakistan?s batsman Misbah Ul-Haq scoop it in the air much too lightly to make the deep boundary. It was the cup clincher. India?s victory was splattered all over the media, with a windblown Dhoni cutting quite the dashing figure, an emblem all too fast and furious to comprehend all at one go.
It was also a classic Dhoni moment. He was the centre of attention, but didn?t seem to know it. Of course, he?d had his highs before. As both, wicketkeeper and batsman. But none of his innings, not his swashbuckling 148 off 123 deliveries against
Pakistan in Vishakapatnam 2005, nor his stirring 183 off 145 against Sri Lanka in Jaipur the same year, nor even his cool-under-fire 72 off 46 against India?s archrival in Lahore, 2006, had any hint of the legend that a single act of nonchalant captaincy could do for him in 2007. And, in truth, for Indian cricket.
Why Sharma? Heck, he said he?s up to it. Easy decision. Suddenly, the game?s twitchy nerves were gone. Casual spontaneity was in. And cricket could be cricket again. Cricket as a game, lose-some-win-some, not some uptight beast of nationalist burden.
How it happened is besides the point. The easy-does-it spirit has proven catchy enough. Breathe easy, everybody seems to be saying. ?Run easy? rather, to cite one of Reebok?s early ads to have featured the cricketer. And this, don?t forget, is the ?I am who I am? brand. Dhoni doing his own thing is one helluva lot more natural than Dhoni contorting his face in dour determination to inspire the nation or something.
Not that Dhoni is too relaxed to wind anyone?s ambitions up. In advertising, there?s no running away from that. To get the girl, for instance, or at least not be laughed off outright, Dhoni offers credible advice on the diffe-rence that hairstyle signals can make. But instead of L?Oreal, which has its own celeb doing such a swell ice-ice-baby job for it, it?s Brylcreem that has the dude doing the masculine equivalent of twirling tresses to make that style-your-hair-wow-the-babe proposition.
Does he have a clue? That?s irrelevant, so long as his field performance is his own field performance, and he doesn?t lose his cool. Nor is it important what circumstances conspired to put him there.
And just when you think Dhoni should endorse a fruit company or something, serendipity strikes again: 7Up has him knocking on your TV screen to demystify his rise to cricket fame and fortune. Tennis, it seems, was his first passion. Ah. But you know those yellow bouncy balls? Once struck, the darned things just couldn?t keep to the court?s boxes and boundary lines, and the harder he tried, the worse they behaved? till he gave up and found himself on the cricket field.
With such a high nautanki quotient, it?s a wonder Dhoni didn?t find himself
in a film studio instead. Or, wait?he actually did. Or nearly did, if Videocon?s version of his success story is any closer to what actually happened. Shah Rukh Khan and MS Dhoni, it now emerges, were separated at birth (okay, at a mela,that rarest of rare separation venues). One of them was brought up by cinema, and the other by cricket, and had the ?V? locket around their necks not sorted out the mix-up, one of them would?ve been trying to heave his willow for six (and more), and the other would?ve been fighting pelvic epilepsy (to an Om Shanti Om soundtrack).
No, being cool wouldn?t have been easy.