MS Dhoni trains at the NCA, far from the throng

MS Dhoni’s dedication towards cricket has earned him appreciations from every nook and corner of the globe. He is 36-years old but is one of the fittest players in the Indian team. He might not be getting any younger, however, his hunger to scale greater heights hasn’t diminished by any stretch of the imagination. He has been an indefatigable trooper for Indian cricket ever since he made his debut.

He hung his boots from Test cricket back in 2014 but has continued playing the ODI and T20I format. The Jharkhand-born cricketer carved himself a reputation for being one of the best finishers in world cricket. In recent times, he was greeted with a severe amount of brickbat owing to his ‘waiting-game’ approach to batting. He answered them appropriately and notched some superlative knocks in the IPL.

The relentless hard work

His next assignment is India’s limited overs series versus Ireland, which gets underway on the first week of July. He took the rather ‘cursed’ yo-yo Test and passed the same with flying colors. The cricketer is currently in Bangalore where he trained at the National Cricket Academy (NCA), away from the crowd, who would have rooted for their hero had they been present.

During the session, he had Raghu, the nets team’s throwdown expert, and speedster Shardul Thakur. He practiced for 2 hours at a stretch. Raghu’s throw downs and Thakur’s deliveries were served to the veteran. Following the rigorous session, he took a break and then resumed batting. This time Siddarth Kaul, one of the new entrants in the Indian team, also was present.

Raghu started with his deliveries and gradually increased his pace. Short deliveries, from the back-of-a-length, were hurled at Dhoni and the batsman countered them expertly. He defended, swayed away and even smacked a few of them. At times, he called up Shardul Thakur and gave him pieces of advice.

His reflexes aren’t the same anymore and he had loads of plays and missed. Nonetheless, it made a beautiful sound when the ball met the bat. Once the curtains came down on the session, Dhoni noticed a couple of onlookers watching him.

“Bhanak laag gaya (people got the hint about Dhoni’s presence),” he gave a smile and walked inside the NCA  dressing room.

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