interview of an eminent person dhoni
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INTERVIEWS
AOC Exclusive: MS Dhoni Interview
by Wisden Staff September 2, 2014 - 9:55am
In his first magazine interview in five years, the biggest star in cricket’s firmament sat down with AOC guest editor Mark Nicholas to discuss life, bikes, combat and love. “I care most about how people live their lives,” he tells us. This is his extraordinary story.
You would be forgiven for thinking that winning the World Cup was MS Dhoni’s finest moment. After all, that wonderfully free hit over mid-on for six – a stroke of majesty and triumph to close the deal – lifted a heavy burden from the shoulders of all India. The young were sick of hearing about the old, hearing tales of Kapil Dev’s famous band who had won the World Cup in England in 1983. India’s youth finally had its moment and, best of all, had it at home, in the city of Gavaskar and Tendulkar, and from the hand of a captain whose swashbuckling style had made him as much a darling in the grand homes of Kolkata as in the fishing villages of Kerala.
MS and me are off for dinner. He is wearing trainers, jeans sawn off at the knee, a T-shirt and a camouflage jacket. We turn left out of the team hotel and left again down an alleyway that leads us immediately into the central square of another provincial English town. After a third left and a stroll past Nando’s – he wants a break, he says – we enter another chicken-type diner that he says is pretty good. During this short walk, the Indian captain is asked to pose for 25 photographs. To the first family of five he says no, but adds that he will be back a little later and will happily answer their call then. Fifty metres later he relents. Of course, five means 25. “Rahul [Dravid] taught me how to say no politely,” he says, “but in the end, when it is only a few people, why not.”
In the diner, the manager’s face lights up. Dhoni hands him a signed Indian shirt. Waiters gather to look. The place is near empty. We sit at a small table and drink orange juice. He is an unbelievably good-looking man. A woman comes over with her daughter. She shoves her forward and Dhoni gives a nice smile for the ‘snap’. The woman cannot contain herself and, puce with embarrassment, asks if she can do the same. “No problem,” he says. The husband comes over too. You’ve probably got the picture by now. The chicken arrives.