Even as he walked up to the practice arena on Saturday morning, it was difficult to fathom that it is The Dhoni. There were no autograph hunters or selfie chasers to get a grab of him.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni has been called the man with the Midas Touch. His magic can even be seen around cinemas in the country where people are thronging to watch their hero's story in his biopic — MS Dhoni, the Untold Story.
However, this hilly town fans have given cold shoulder to India's World Cup-winning captain.
Even as he walked up to the practice arena on Saturday morning, it was difficult to fathom that it is The Dhoni. There were no autograph hunters or selfie chasers to get a grab of him.
But the script changed once India Test captain Virat Kohli arrived at the scene. It was a struggle for the Delhi batsman to make his way to the practice area. Despite tight security, a few fans kept chasing the 27-year-old till he reached his destination.
If thronging of fans is any indicator, the message is clear. The time has possibly come where fans want to see Kohli take over all the three formats. It was similar when Dhoni was a rising star.
Dhoni, too, has realised the same. And that was the reason he started using Kohli's advice to his advantage.
"I have already started using him (Kohli) more. If you watch a match, you will see I have more interactions with him on the field because two individuals, of course, will conduct in different ways," Dhoni said on the eve of the first ODI against New Zealand.
Dhoni is amazed with the change in thought of one captain for all formats. "About the split captaincy, we follow the west (England and Australia) a lot. I remember a few years ago, we were talking about split captaincy, now we're talking about why we have split captaincy."
"A lot of times we look at the foreign teams and what they are doing, and we are like we should be doing that way. But it's more about what trend we want to set, what is good for our team. Because culture wise, we are very different. The amount of cricket we play is very different to what some of the other teams do. So it's an answer best got from your side," he added.
The wicketkeeper-batsman from Jharkhand batsman will look to promote himself up the batting order. "I may bat slightly up the order now. This team will give me an opportunity to bat at the number I'm looking for. But still it'll be quite low. It's not like a No. 4 where I could bat still it'll be relatively higher than what I'm used to in the last few years," Dhoni said.
"I personally feel a finisher is somebody who bats at No. 5 or 6. It is very difficult to come and fill in that opportunity because there would be times when you don't even get an opportunity as the top-order does the bulk of the scoring," he added.
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