Two Test victories over world champions Australia, followed by three one-day triumphs on the trot against England, and everybody is now calling Mahendra Singh Dhoni the messiah of Indian cricket. The cue for this, I reckon, has been taken from the overwhelming influence of the recent US presidential elections. But for me, the `Barrack Obama moment’, so to speak, for Indian cricket came late last year when Dhoni was still not the full-fledged captain of the team.

``Yes, we can,” he said when I asked him whether the world champions could be beaten. This was right after India had beaten Australian in the T20 match at the CCI. I happened to be at the same restaurant as Dhoni, who had come there to celebrate, along with a few colleagues. The team was to fly out in a few days to Australia, but Ponting and Co on their home pitches was altogether a different proposition. So what and how were the Indian players squaring up to this challenge? I asked him.

"To beat them in the middle, you have to beat them in the mind first,'' Dhoni told me. "You can't have fear and win against Australia. We have played for years like this against them, but no more. I am not interested in giving Brett Lee and Ricky Ponting respect because they are great players. I want to hit Lee for a six and get Ponting for zero.'' I searched for misplaced arrogance; the overconfidence of youth, but Dhoni just looked intense and smiled wryly.

There was a glint in his eyes, which suggested that these were not hollow words: He meant business. Evidence of this came in various stages and ways during that acrimonious tour — in the manner in which he dealt with Ponting’s team and his own —and reached a crescendo, of sorts, in the recently completed home series. Led brilliantly by Dhoni, India outsmarted and outplayed Australia so comprehensively that aficionados now believe that the power structure of international cricket has been redefined.

Can India become the number one team in the world in the next 12 to 15 months? Given the talent available in the country, this would seem a cinch. Which other team boasts players like Tendulkar, Sehwag, Gambhir, Laxman, Yuvraj, Zaheer, Ishant, Harbhajan, Dravid? Indian cricket now has the depth and class to dislodge Australia from the pedestal they have occupied for almost 15 years.

And yet, great players don’t necessarily make a great team. It takes something extra for a bunch of individuals to become a hunting pack that lives, plays, and enjoys together. This requires not just a captain, but a leader, at the helm. The history of sport suggests that when this happens, a team can reach great heights. Whether Dhoni can take Indian cricket to such heights remains to be seen, but at the moment, it must be said that no other man seems better equipped to do this.

What makes him such a compelling cricketer is not just his abundant skill, rather the person he is. Dhoni thinks differently, always positively, does not brood on failure, is prepared to take big risks, and cherishes success without being greedy or obsessive. For a young man, he has a very mature head on his shoulders, and he brings this understanding to cricketing situations on the field, as well as in man-management.

His rejection of Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly from the one-day team raised a few hackles, and many eyebrows, and his unstinting support of Yuvraj brought about muted protests of favouritism. In fact, the manner in which he changed the composition of the team frequently — and the batting and bowling orders — during the T-20 World Championships had caused the conservatives to question his methods.

In the end, though, nothing succeeds like success. Over the past 15 months, after being suddenly elevated to the captaincy, Dhoni has won the Twenty20 World Championship, capped the last tour of Australia with a sensational win in the tri-series, became the highest-paid player in the Indian Premier League, led his Chennai team into the final of the tournament with decisive leadership. Since then, he has won all three Test matches he has led in, plus also the first three one-dayers against England.

In this time he has also become among the most respected and feared players in the world; a man whose opinions are sought and respected. His earthy qualities, as person and player, make him far more approachable than any other, and in that sense he has a pan-India appeal that only celebrities like Sachin tendulkar, Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan have enjoyed. I can't think of another Indian captain who has achieved so much in so little time.

For a young man from the rugged hinterland of Jharkand, who started life as a ticket collector in the railways, Dhoni has traveled an incredible path, living out his own dream, and providing succour to the dreams of crores of others who must now believe: Yes, we can!