Satire: Review of MS Dhoni's autobiography - Well Of Course

MS Dhoni

The article is co-authored by Santosh Antony and Siddartha Khandelwal

After the autobiographies of Kevin Pietersen and Sachin Tendulkar created a huge stir, the world, including us, was waiting with bated breath for the slated release of MS Dhoni’s version.

Speculation was rife that the Indian cricket captain was unhappy with Tendulkar titling his autobiography as "Playing it my way", as, to Dhoni, it seemed more apt to his book. However, the current title, “Well, of course”, isn’t a bad one, either.

We, then, went to the nearest bookstore to enquire about our copy.

“I don’t have it,” was the store owner’s reply.

“What??!!” I asked, aghast.

“I have 2 copies of Playing it My Way and 1 copy of Timeless Steel still in my inventory. MSD’s company Rhiti Sports has refused to distribute their books where the books of any ‘senior player’ are available.”

Unable to believe this, we went to a couple of more bookstalls, only to get the same answer.

Finally, after tireless searching, a kind-hearted bookkeeper gave us a copy.

Relieved, Santosh asked, “How much?”

“Rs. 4500”

“What? For one book?”

It never comes alone

“One book? Dear Lord, no. Don’t you read the papers? MS Dhoni’s book is not to be sold loose. If you want to buy the book, you have to buy the whole set, which includes “I am now a hooker” by Suresh Raina (before imaginations run wild, we have not yet read it, but believe it has something do with his improved handling of short-pitched stuff), “Test Cricket is Best Cricket” by Murali Vijay, “Mai bhi mystery spinner” by Ravichandran Ashwin, “The Knight in the Shining Moustache” by Sir Sri Sri Ravindra Jadeja (there were unconfirmed rumours that it was ghostwritten by Shikhar Dhawan, and ‘Sir’ is returning the favor in the opener’s autobiography ‘Art of Leaving’.

The logic behind this unusual pact beats us, because both are equally adept at writing and, of course, “Satta, Satta and BCCI” by N Srinivasan (translates to Power Politics, Betting and BCCI). And the remaining 100 rupees will be donated to the ‘Srinivasan Charitable Trust’. Don’t worry, it is for a good cause.”

The shopkeeper even gave us a publisher gossip that Dhoni tried his best to include Mohit Sharma’s autobiography – ‘Ek Ehsaan hum na bhoolenge’, which translates to ‘I will not forget this favour by you’, but it was rejected, as publishers felt that the title (which Mohit refused to change even after much persuasion) could apply to most of the aforementioned autobiographies in the set and also create unwanted controversy.

What could we do? We simply had to read the book. So, after shelling out the cash, we went home and finally opened the first page of the book to be met with the following disclaimer:

“I do not drink and have no kinds of hangovers. Everything written in this book is true and to the best of my knowledge.”

P.S. I drink loads of milk, of course but more on that later.

The slow start

After turning the page, we were surprised to see the first page completely blank. At first, we thought that there was a mistake in print, but the realization soon dawned that the book was an exact replica of a typical Dhoni innings. After turning twenty or so pages, finally the words began to appear. The excitement in the initial pages was directly proportional to the expressiveness on Duncan Fletcher’s face during any given match. Any reader can be forgiven for going back to the blank pages and reading them instead, for all the “middle pages” described were mundane.

Dhoni begins with the basics of ticket collection and strategies to identify and nab passengers travelling without them. He, then, gets into a long emotional discourse on when his ticket checking pitch Kharagpur used to have the longest platform in the world and spends ten pages ranting about the remodelled Gorakhpur and Kollam platforms, which have relegated his ‘home’ platform to third. He then speaks about how he used to sit at various railway stations and watch trains go by, counting the number of bogies and the model and make of the engine. He talks about his life as a ticket collector and train fares.

Sets himself for the slog

However, we will save you the torture and fast forward the review to when about 80% of the book is complete, where it stops meandering and finally gets down to business.

Dhoni neatly connects past and present by stating that not much has changed from being a ticket collector to a cricketer.

“First I used to check tickets, now I collect Big-ticket cheques. It’s very much the same, nothing has changed,” he says, in the most matter-of-fact way possible.

One of the most startling revelations is at the beginning of his captaincy stint. Dhoni reveals that – though he never drinks – at times he occasionally ‘gets trippy’ and that, similar to Tony Adams, he entered the T20 World Cup finals ‘on a high’, before adding it was the reason why he threw the ball to Joginder Sharma in the last over, mistaking him to be Chetan Sharma and Misbah-ul-Haq as Javed Miandad.

The skipper confesses that what was hailed as a masterstroke was merely a sub-conscious effort to correct the last-ball six in Sharjah, of which he has been having nightmares since childhood. The sudden visual of Shanthakumaran Sreesanth charging towards him after holding that catch jolted Dhoni out of the trance; when he saw what happened, he chose to keep mum then, but not anymore, obviously, for that is what they do.

The revelations keep pouring down after this. Dhoni admitted that being the vice president of India Cements was necessary for him to “cement” his place in the side. He adds that he kept insisting young keepers to choose their requisite skills wisely as long as he is around. “All for a good cause”, he claims in his book.

Yuvi-Deepika-Dhoni triangle

MS Dhoni and Ambati Rayudu

Speaking about the Yuvi-Deepika-Dhoni triangle, Dhoni stated he was, well, of course, a one-woman-man and his first and last love was SMS Dhoni (SakshiMahinder Singh Dhoni) and he had absolutely nothing to do with Deepika. He is now happily married, and reiterates Deepika was nothing more than a dear friend. He admits that he stated he “wanted his girlfriend to be like her“, but the same description would not apply to his wife and he always wanted his wife to be like SMS.

He also states that the downfall of the senior players like Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and VVS Laxman was purely due to their bad form and has nothing to do with him or Srinivasan, whereas he was retained as captain and player because he was not in a bad form but a bad patch.

“Form is temporary, patch is even more temporary”, the book read, also stating that he was sure he would get back into good form. Though we wondered what ‘get back’ meant, as he has hardly been in good form in Tests, we all know for a fact now that the good form never came.

Dhoni also states that the ‘show of solidarity’ was genuine and not staged when it came to him and Sehwag unlike the West Indian show, which was completely discredited by Samuels. However, Sehwag – in his autobiography “Did you see my Catch” – begs to differ.

Answering speculation about his involvement in Rhiti Sports, Dhoni chooses philosophy over logic: The more you own, the more you know you don't own. While, as usual, all quotes in this book are claimed to be original, a quick web search revealed that a certain ex-husband of a former US First Lady may be turning slowly in his grave at such blatant misuse of his words. To make matters worse, while the ‘original’ quote looks like an introduction to something more substantial, Dhoni quickly changes the topic, talking about recession in western economies as the cause for him to cultivate shorter hairstyles – 50% of the savings from reduction in his usage of oil, gel, pesticide (we did not quite get that, to be honest) etc., in his hair went to an unemployment fund in an undisclosed once-developed economy and the rest to the famous Srini charitable trust.

The Indian captain laughed out on the “Who is the Boss controversy” between Duncan Fletcher and Ravi Shastri, stating the correct answer was, well, of course, “None of the above”.

Rayudu’s biriyani trick

Also, Dhoni finally ‘comes clean’ on the whole refusing Rayudu the single and the Biryani incident.

Exerpts from the book read “Rayudu had promised home-cooked biriyani when the team played in Hyderabad later and even gave me a sample on the eve of the T20 game. While I assumed he cooked it himself, now I wonder if it was packed from home before he came down for the ODIs, because towards the end of the match, I started feeling significant 'side-effects' and any running was aggravating it. The rest, as you all know, is history.”

“And when the promised biryani came later, I left the room for the betterment of the hotel. I was a valiant, unsung hero. The hero the hotel deserves but not the one it needs right now. I'm not a hero, but a silent guardian, a watchful protector.”He sums up how grossly he has been misinterpreted all throughout his career.

In continuation, he writes, “I had 8 glasses of milk as a youngster. Hence I can generally keep calm and composed under ‘pressure’. It was evident throughout my career apart from that fateful day when “pressure got the better of me”.

Slog overs

We realized that the ‘slog overs’ were upon us, when we came across a couple of full-colour pages containing Dhoni’s one-liner opinions on various people/topics. The man had just played his famous helicopter shot, which in literary terms would mean use of a completely inappropriate and out-of-context narrative technique, condemned in writing manuals, but which ends up being surprisingly effective. Some of these are as follows:

Rohit Sharma - my best bet for a lifetime achievement awardRavi Shastri - childhood idol, who inspired me (and a few actresses) to always flash..and flash hardDuncan Fletcher - the only person whose face is more expressionless than mineSreesanth - the man who inspired Vishal Bharadwaj to include the word (and pronounciation) 'chutzpah' in HaiderRavindra Jadeja – The Rajnikanth of Indian cricket.Chucking - reminds me to only sign endorsements for half-sleeve garments next yearMatch-fixing - when sport and (pre-determined) destiny become one

The final twist

There are several more such quips, and we recommend a buy based on this section alone. Our expectations were reasonably satisfied, but, of course, the customary ‘six at the end’ was yet to come. We could almost visualize the man’s bat-lift and the sinewy forearm muscles flexing as the penultimate page of the book ended with the line, ‘Turn over to know the truth about match-fixing in the IPL.’

With trembling fingers and increasingly uncontrollable heartbeats, we flipped the leaf to uncover one of the most talked about controversies in Indian cricket in recent times. What we encountered was not layers of black and white, but a loud, colorful full-page advertisement, dominated by the screaming headlines: THE TRUTH BEHIND MATCH-FIXING IN THE IPL. The remaining space was taken up by the smiling visage of Dhoni, surrounded by proportionately smaller mug-shots of Srinivasan, Meiyappan, Vindoo Dara Singh and the likes. It took a couple of moments to realize that the last-ball six was an ad of his autobiography’s sequel (the man cannot be accused of not thinking out of the box, ever).

We looked at each other with expressions best described as a cross between Fletcher and a freshly plucked stump-souvenir, before I grinned, “So, when do we pick ‘Playing It My Way’,” before neatly ducking “Well, Of Course”, which flew past my ear and through the open window into the unknown.

Disclaimer: This article is a satire and is only meant for humour.