When M S Dhoni announced his arrival in style!

MS. Mahi. Thalai. MS Dhoni. The former India skipper, a bona fide legend and quite possibly one of the most influential players of his generation, wasn’t all this when he made his debut in the ODIs against Bangladesh in 2004.

He was a young-ish lad from small-town Ranchi hoping to make it big in the dog-eat-dog world of cricket. He had the confidence for it. Skill and mindset to succeed? We were to find out.

His hair-do, which went onto become a trend worth forgetting, was literally all that stood out because in his first three games, and that too against Bangladesh, he scored 0, 12 and 7*. In his opening game the next series against Pakistan, he made 3. Quite the ’keeper but hardly a batsman, and given Indian cricket’s history with the same, it was worth being overlooked. But not Sourav Ganguly.

The then skipper, on a mission to dominate world cricket, was about filling all potential voids in the side and promoting youth. He also knew well that talent didn’t have a prescribed state body or a hair-do. He believed talent with the right opportunity would yield dividends.

And so on April 5, 2005, Ganguly sent Dhoni out to bat at No.3. He had batted at No.7 until then. MS turned unleashed the virtuoso in him. It wasn’t textbook, far from it, but it was effective to a point where Pakistan feared him more than they did Virender Sehwag, and the opener scored 74 from 40 balls on the day.

Dhoni had all the time in the world to build an innings once Sachin Tendulkar was out for 2 in the fourth over of the game, but with brilliance to boot there’s no time to waste. He went at them as if his career depended on it, perhaps it did, and he came away with 148 from 123 balls with 15 fours and four sixes. India scored 356 for 9 and defeated Pakistan by 58 runs, but the knock transcended the result.

The world hadn’t seen anything of that sort prior that day, and it hasn’t stopped wanting the same 15 years later.

Brief scores: India: 356/9 in 50 overs (Virender Sehwag 74, MS Dhoni 148, Rahul Dravid 58; Naved-ul-Hasan 3-54) bt Pakistan: 298 all out in 44.1 overs (Salman Butt 36, Abdul Razzaq 88, Mohammad Yousuf 71, Kamran Akmal 41; Ashish Nehra 4-72, Yuvraj Singh 3-55).