'Put Yourself in Their Shoes': MS Dhoni on How He Keeps His Calm During Adversity

Leadership has multiple conceptions.

In a sport where the role of a captain could be the decisive factor between victory and loss, many legendary leaders have tried to establish what it means to be a captain. But, nobody in the history of the game has revolutionised the position as much as the rightly nicknamed ‘Captain Cool’ MS Dhoni has.

The man who has won virtually everything there is to be won at the very top of world cricket earned the respect of the world by patting his ‘at-fault’ teammates on the back during times when so many other captains would have used thrown a temper tantrum, however befitting.

The former Indian captain who lead the team to World Cup Glory in the year 2011 recently revealed how he deals with the most crunch of situations.

“Honestly, when we are on the field, we do not want to make any mistakes whether it’s misfielding, dropped catches or any other mistake," began the cricketing great from Ranchi.

“I always try and get into their shoes to figure out why a player dropped a catch or why somebody misfielded. Getting angry does not help matters. There are already 40,000 people watching from the stands and crores of people watching the match. I had to see what the reason was," the 41-year-old said.

The maverick batsman who has thrilled Indian fans for so many years spoke about the intent of the players to improve and develop and cited ‘effort’ as the underlying factor as he takes stock of events on the field.

“If a player is 100 per cent attentive on the ground and he misses a catch despite that, I don’t have a problem."

“Of course, I also want to see how many catches he took during practice before that. If he had a problem somewhere and he is making efforts to get better or not. I used to focus on all these aspects instead of focusing on whether a catch was dropped," Dhoni continued.

“Maybe we lost a game because of that but the effort was always to try to step into their shoes."

‘Thala’ as he is fondly known by adoring Chennai Super Kings fans, the multi-talented wicketkeeper-batsman has time and again managed to turn the tide of many a match by keeping a level head even when circumstantial evidence seemingly suggests one to act otherwise.

Dhoni also spoke about how he is, after all, a human too and does feel strong emotions during games.

“I am also human. I would feel the same way inside as you all felt. When you go out and play a match among yourselves, you would feel bad."

“We represent our country, so we would feel worse. But we always try and control our emotions."

Dhoni also implored the fans to rally behind their national team players during tough times.

“Sitting on the outside, it’s always easy to say we should have played in a certain way but it’s not easy. We are representing our country but the opposition players are also representing their country too."

“They are there to play the game and a lot of times, there will be ups and downs."

Spoken like a true champion.

MS Dhoni. A class act, through and through.

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