Yamma Maahi

Like majority of the female population of this country, I am a huge fan of Mahi. No I don’t think he is great looking nor adore his locks. What I adore about him is his temperament.

My longest lasting crush was on Rahul Dravid whom I again adored for his temperament. But I think Dhoni goes a step further. While Dravid was cool and composed Dhoni is aggressive, cool and composed. Dhoni is proactive and takes his job seriously as a captain. He has no hesitation about voicing his opinion or offering advice to the legends of the game as he looks upon them as players whom he is expected to lead. In the recent Mohali match I was amused to see him walk up to Dada to tell him something during their long partnership.

Another adorable quality is he is objective and leads from the front. The fact that he promoted himself before the fab 3 in the second innings without even worrying about whether they would feel slighted goes to show that for him “the team indeed comes first.”

The third quality that impresses me is the way he handles the press conferences. His answers are as straightforward and crude as his shots. For instance in the post-match conference at Mohali when he was asked about how India had got the better of Australia in verbal volleying, he retorted by saying, “if we had to win the match on verbals, we would have hired a few people who were experts at that” He is also refreshingly self-effacing and down-to earth.

Lastly and to me the most important are his special “gestures”. Its difficult enough to control the heady sense of victory and the adrenaline rush when we have won an important series. But captain cool does not just keep cool but goes beyond that. How? Remember when India won the One day series down under when people all around were dancing about in glee, Dhoni quietly headed towards the dressing room to find Sachin whose important innings had won India the match. Numerous other gestures like driving the bike no matter who won the man of the match, handing over the stump to Ganguly or even giving his shirt to a young kid on the boundary line.

In this modern age of at times dirty aggressive cricket, its nice to see these warm gestures which bring out the softer- humane side of our super-heroes.

By
Pravda