Sorry for being a dick, Dhoni

We are an instinctive lot, this generation or for that matter every generation that preceded us. We believe in saying and doing things without thinking much and later not just think, but muse, retrospect rather tragically, even romantically about could’ves and should’ves of the past, about how things would’ve accrued had they been done differently or people been treated differently at their times of relevance when it really mattered. Only if collective regret had that kind of power.
It’s no more about the aesthetic appeal or the intrinsic value of a thing. It’s become all about flamboyance, instant gratification, bigger the better kind of scene.

We too, like most average minded people of the world are obsessed with outcomes, lack the vision to see an event- not as a standalone one – as a point in a continuum in the vast history of an ever evolving sport or an legend’s long career that segues seamlessly into it. With the efflux of time,
we tend to become more forgiving. Nostalgia brings back fond memories. The parts of the heart that had hitherto dried up, begin to moisten up. And it also helps that a chapter has ended or an era has concluded. Because time lends us a dispassionate, panoramic perspective of things, that the heat of the moment eluded. We once again begin to see the good parts, understand their value, miss them to only realize that it’s too late and then go on to write eulogies like this one. But what’s the point when of a eulogy, when they weren’t treated with respect in their times.

That press meet in Wankhede was a very different place for Dhoni on the evening of April,2011. Moments before which, he had just transitioned from superstardom to something far beyond- eternity. A place very few people have gone to like the little man in the dressing room who was playing his last world cup at that time. Sachin’s retirement was the most second guessed item of that time and it was no surprise that it was an area of interest at the press conference post the world cup victory. Dhoni stood by him at that time with both, adulation and gratitude for his contribution to the sport and his career.
It is cryptically funny when observed from a distance that destiny is a dense collective; a design full of echoes and ricochets of events from the past repeating themselves in the present. Eight years later, yesterday, Kohli found himself in the same place Dhoni was that day, fielding questions about his retirement in a press conference, same way he was that day about Sachin’s. Only that this wasn’t an occasion of victory. And like every tragic hero, there was a touch of irony as well. Dhoni, the world’s best finisher couldn’t finish the game one last time after getting so close to the finish line, because the world’s fastest runner(also him) was….. run out by a miserably out of form Guptill, whose contribution to the game till that point was strictly headcount.
In time details will fade and there will be a point where water would’ve gone under the bridge. Dhoni may or may not retire immediately. The helicopter shots might come back in this last phase. Or maybe we’ll have to settle for the ugly utility knocks that help the team, but get lost in the scoreboard. He might be around just long enough to become a sort of villain, Nolan was talking about like Sachin almost did. But all I know is he’s changed the way the sport was played – with the mind as much as the bat and ball. No doubt that history and historians of the game will definitely be kind to him, lavish in fact. That’s a given. How are we going to be to him when he’s still around?