A man possessed

When Mahendra Singh Dhoni left the field today after having lashed 148 inonly his fifth innings in international cricket, he had imprinted such anarray of astounding strokes on the memory of those watching that a dozenknowledgeable observers could have each picked a personal favourite and notwo choices need have been the same.A purist might have gone for the off-drive for four with which Dhoni gotoff the mark, or the lofted extra-cover drive that took him to 99; loversof big hitting could have taken their pick from his four sixes, two overlong-off and two over midwicket; and those impressed by audaciousimprovisation might speak reverently of his little tip shot over thewicketkeeper’s head for two, or the lap sweep he brought off to a fulldelivery from Abdul Razzaq, skipping swiftly across his stumps and,bending low, sending the ball very fine for four with a cross-batted stroke.Others might choose to dwell upon general features of Dhoni’s batting asmarks of his special ability and self-belief: the manner in which hesmites short-of-length balls over point like Virender Sehwag, theconfidence with which he plays balls coming into him inside-out throughpoint and cover, his forays down the pitch or across his stumps tounsettle the quick bowlers, and his willingness to hit the ball in theair even with the field set back. It was fitting that when he came out,batting at No.3 for India for the first time, it was to join the rapaciousSehwag. Their partnership of 96 for the second wicket in a little more than tenovers was a glimpse into the future of Indian batting.Dhoni had been knocking on the doors of the national team for quite awhile – at least since the time he took two cracking hundreds off PakistanA in a tournament in Nairobi last August. But one of the curses afflictingwicketkeepers who show talent with the bat is that they neverthelesscontinue to compete only with the wicketkeeper who is the currentincumbent, and not the six batsmen in front of that keeper. On theevidence of this performance Dhoni should have been pipping one of VVSLaxman, Yuvraj Singh, and Mohammad Kaif much before this.Dhoni’s pent-up ambition – he hardly did anything of note with the bat onhis debut tour of Bangladesh last year – and desire to come good wasevident even from the more peripheral aspects of his game today. For allof the two-and-a-half hours he spent at the crease he sprinted between thewickets like a man possessed, his long mane of hair bobbing below hishelmet, and Rahul Dravid had to calm him down and tell him to take iteasy after one particularly frantic series of twos when he was in thenineties. And once he had got to his hundred his command over the bowlingwas total. It is not everyday that Shahid Afridi, who is devilishlydifficult to collar because of his variations and changes of pace, goesfor more than 80 in nine overs.In his few games Dhoni’s wicketkeeping has gone largely unremarked – andthis is one sign of how sound his glovework has been thus far. Of coursethere will be more said about his keeping as more is seen of him, but thequestion now before India is whether – despite the good form displayedrecently by Dinesh Karthik – there is any way in which Dhoni can be keptout of the Test team. Although there are still a couple of rough edges tohis batting, like a tendency to play uppishly through gully, few captainswould want to ignore the allure of a wicketkeeper-batsman who can turn aTest on its head in the space of an hour from No. 7.It seems hard to believe now that only last March Rahul Dravid was keepingwicket in Pakistan for want of a wicketkeeper who could bat adequately.Indeed, Dravid himself may have been thinking of the piquant reversal ofthis situation during the partnership of 149 he shared with Dhoni today,in which he played the supporting role while his younger partner tookcentrestage.When Dhoni finally skied a ball to midwicket and was caught, he departed toa standing ovation, with his everpresent swagger and with thered tints in his hair glinting in the sun. It felt as if something hadchanged violently within the long-settled and familiar order that is theIndian batting line-up, as if an explosion had gone off whose echo wouldring in the ears for very long.Chandrahas Choudhury is a staff writer with Wisden Asia Cricket magazine.