Why Ms Dhoni!

Bharat Sundaresan is among the sharpest minds writing on cricket today. In this excerpt from his new book The Dhoni Touch (Penguin Random House India), he delves into the time when the wicketkeeper-batsman became the face of Chennai Super Kings over Virender Sehwag, once former National Selector VB Chandrasekhar convinced team owner N Srinivasan of his potential. The latter would admittedly go on to veto against Dhoni's axeing as India captain in 2013.

‘I’m Dhoni.’ V.B. Chandrasekhar still sounds a tad staggered every time he recalls his first-ever encounter with Dhoni. More so when he narrates that last part where Dhoni knocked on his hotel room door at 10.30 in the night and introduced himself in the most matter-of-fact fashion possible. But to really fathom his astonishment, you’ll need to know the background to this unique first meeting between the then national selector and the rookie wicketkeeper he’d never laid his eyes on before.

It was 29 March 2005, a day before the touring Pakistanis were scheduled to play a warm-up one-day match in Hyderabad.

Chandrasekhar was on hand as the South Zone national selector doubling up as the manager of India A — a common practice back then — which had only one wicketkeeper in their squad. But by 7 p.m., there was no sign of Dhoni, and Chandrasekhar was getting concerned. ‘I made a call to Pranab Roy, the East Zone selector then, and asked him about this Dhoni’s whereabouts. He simply said, “Don’t worry, he’ll come.” I asked, “Where is he coming from?’’ But he just said, “No, no, he’ll be there.”’

Chandrasekhar, the former Tamil Nadu and India opener, hadn’t even seen a picture of Dhoni at that point but had heard that he was an exceptional striker of the cricket ball.

Concern turned into near-panic by 9 p.m. as Dhoni remained absconding. An hour later, Chandrasekhar had more or less resigned to the fact that his team would go into the match the next morning without a specialist wicketkeeper.

‘Hyderabad wasn’t a big airport back then like now, and not many flights would land post 9 p.m. Plus, I knew he was coming from really far away,’ he says. Then came the knock on his door, and an annoyed Chandrasekhar was just about to unleash himself on the long-haired, muscular man standing right outside.