022 - He came. He saw. He conquered.

“In the air, Sreesanth takes it, India win! Unbelievable scenes here at the bull ring!”

“Dhoni finishes off in style. A magnificent strike into the crowd! India lift the World Cup after 28 years!”

While growing up in the late 90s and early 2000s, my childhood was very much scarred by the Australian teams of that era, it seemed impossible to compete with them in ICC tournaments.

The 2003 World Cup Final, and the sheer domination. Despite having some of the greatest players of their era, we weren't able to find any success in winning these major tournaments. Was it a skill thing? a mindset thing? I personally think, we just never believed our team to be World Beaters. From 1998-2007, we were fans that had reasonable expectations, but we weren't an entitled bunch,

But in 2007, after we won one of the greatest WC Finals of all time, the winning mentality started breeding within the players and within us as fans. After MSD, we all expect India to win. Because he led the path to figure a way out to get out of tricky situations and cross the line.

I remember the latter part of his international career didn't go as planned, but I'm glad he got some sort of redemption with CSK last evening (not with the bat unfortunately, but with the result).

Some of the greatest icons in sports haven't gotten the fairytale ending they deserve.

MS Dhoni, Arsene Wenger, Cristiano Ronaldo, And some have, like Lionel Messi, Sachin Tendulkar, and Sir Alex Ferguson.

I don't know if Dhoni is going to retire after this tournament but I do know, he's given some of the greatest joys to us as fans, inspired a generation, and I hope he hangs his boots because he deserves this ending.

Last evening at the press conference, when he said,

"The easy thing would be for me to say "Thank you very much", but the tough thing for me is to work hard for another 9 months and come back and play at least 1 more season of IPL."

You could tell that he's not one to seek that glorified farewell, but as a proper servant of the game, just keep giving back, to the teams, to the fans, and to his players.

Or like all batters who are only going to be remembered by their last innings, he doesn't want his last innings to be a 0(1). That's not his mentality I'm sure.

Either way, whatever he decides, I think his contribution to Indian Cricket is second to none. Have to give a shoutout to Saurav Ganguly, for backing Dhoni when he did. Because had he not, the next generation of Indian superstars may not have been as fearless.

From being a ticket collector to being India's most successful captain, we've been with him on this journey, the helicopter shots, the calmness behind the stumps, and the Dhoni Review System, as much as we'd love for this journey to continue, I wouldn't want his IPL career to end unceremoniously as his international career did.

There is a reason legends of the game have gone on to say that they'd go to war with Dhoni, or Dhoni is the greatest captain they've played under.

I'd like to end this by quoting Sunil Gavaskar, the sentiment resonates with almost every Indian cricket supporter.

“When I die the last thing I want to see is the six that Dhoni hit in the 2011 World Cup final.”

Thank You Lieutenant Colonel Mahendra Singh Dhoni.