IPL Mega Auction: In Rishabh Pant, franchises have a chance to acquire their own MS Dhoni | Cricket News

With a playful smile, on a chilly December Delhi evening at the start of his career, Rishabh Pant admitted that the MS Dhoni comparisons annoyed him. “When I hear this, I sometimes feel people are making fun of me. He is my idol and I feel happy when people compare me with Mahi bhai. But I am just a kid, and feel uncomfortable,” he would say. Nearly a decade later, the Dhoni shadow not only stalks him, but has assumed an even thicker form. So much so that the world sees Dhoni in Pant. There is the disarming backstory of migration, from a small town in Uttarakhand (both) to Ranchi and Delhi. Their batting is irresibly unorthodox. For Dhoni’s helicopter whir, Pant has the falling flick. They keep wicket in pragmatic rather than orthodox manners. If Dhoni epitomised the modern batsman and the modern game, Pant symbolises the post-modern batsman and the post-modern game.
Both smile winsomely, presenting a cheerful demeanour, endearing them to the masses, oozing boy-next-door charms. Their swashbuckling batting have rung in some of the most magnificent moments in Indian cricket. Both are brands, their faces adorn a thousand billboards. They boost TRPs, generate ad revenue and fan worship.
In the IPL mega auction, thus, several franchises would look to recreate the Dhoni magic through Pant. Needless to say, he could provoke a heated bidding war in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah and could potentially walk away as the most expensive player in the league.
The reasons are compelling. Pant is young but proven, his peak years ahead of him. In current form, he is India’s most destructive batsman; he can bat anywhere in the order, can win games and tournaments from the brink, can perform the impossible, and radiates an aura. He could be to the franchise that pockets him what Dhoni is to Chennai Super Kings: a figurehead, an emotion, the pulse. Dhoni’s franchise itself could see him as the next Dhoni.
Enduring icon
Seventeen auctions on, Dhoni remains the ultimate acquisition of all time. In the first auction, only CSK could afford him because the rest had exhausted a bulk of their funds on city-based icon players. How the story unfolded is adequately documented. Dhoni is (along with Rohit Sharma) the most successful captain, he helped Chennai Super Kings forge an identity like no other team; he made CSK the most followed team in the league; he tore the initial perception that cities will identify with only cricketing icons raised among them. Not even Rohit or Virat Kohli could build an emotional connect, an unadulterated love, regardless of the outcome of matches, like Dhoni with the masses. Pant, perhaps, could.
Yet for all the similarities, Pant is not quite Dhoni in certain facets, just as Dhoni is not quite Pant in certain aspects. Pant’s captaincy is still a study in progress. Though he was touted as a future Test captain, his stint with Delhi Capitals illustrated that he is not as natural a leader as Dhoni is. When CSK acquired Dhoni, he had already claimed the T20 World Cup, already displaying the virtues that would make him one of the finest white-ball captains in the world. Pant is inspirational, has the wits and smarts of Dhoni, but at times looked shackled in his DC tenure. So much so that joylessness echoed in his batting too.
His batting in T2Os too has doubters. There are no qualms about his blooming greatness in the longest format, where he could brag he has surpassed Dhoni. It’s a different situation in white-ball forms. His undisputed gifts, his joie de vivre, his knack of raising a storm in crises, have manifested in only fits and flashes. It has been more a case of franchises unable to slot him at a spot where he could maximise his redoubtable talents than him unable to find his Zen.
Besides, franchises would be skeptical of his fitness levels post his accident, even though his return has been largely smooth.
Biggest catch
But the rewards far outweigh the potential risks. Even more so when the generation of Virat and Rohit, 36 and 37 respectively, is quietly fading. The seasons of Dhoni, now 43, too are numbered. The next era is knocking on the doors. The in-betweeners have not unfathomably mustered the fanfare.
Not because of a shortage of heroes. Jasprit Bumrah is India’s greatest-ever match-winner. But he is not a hero of the masses. For all the unique thrills of watching him, Bumrah is still an arthouse joy. Hardik Pandya has too much pantomime villainy in him to win blind devotion of the billions. Suryakumar Yadav is a late-blooming superstar, is already 34, and not an investment for the future.
Among Pant’s generation, Shubman Gill is likeable but elusive; Yashasvi Jaiswal is still at the nascence of his career. Pant not only has a more impressive body of work than both and the fabled X-factor but also that undefinable extra ingredient. That power of being an identity – what Dhoni has been to CSK since 2008.
To have a Dhoni of their own has been a futile but persent pursuit of all franchises since 2009. Millions were splurged in the unrealic ambition. They tried to sculpt a Dhoni out of every flavour of the season, from Gautam Gambhir and Yuvraj Singh to KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya.
No one though bears as much resemblance with Dhoni as Pant. The comparisons could stifle Pant still, but in him, his suitors in Jeddah would see an MS Dhoni.