Delhi in May is not for the faint-hearted.
The mercury threatens to hit the 50°C mark. Sunstroke is a real threat. Cricket might have been invented as a summer sport, but that was in England, not Delhi.
There was no logical reason for anyone to brave the uncovered stands of the Arun Jaitley Stadium in unforgiving heat, especially for a game that would begin at half past three in the afternoon.
Or that was what I thought as I waited for the Metro (the underground), several stations away from Delhi Gate. The yellow blur inside was distinctly visible as the train slowed to a halt at my station. And once onboard, I could hear the chants.
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The noise never abandoned me, not when I switched trains at Mandi House, not when I walked up to the venue, not throughout the match. It was so hot that day that they brought out umbrellas for the cricketers during the breaks, but none of that mattered. The noise. Never. Stopped.
And it exploded when Chennai Super Kings lost their fourth wicket. Forgotten was the fact that this was Delhi Capitals’ home game. All you could hear was one name. Nothing else mattered to that ocean of yellow. The match situation was as inconsequential as the team.
Dhoni converting home fans was not unique to Delhi. Joy Bhattacharjya, former CEO of the Kolkata Knight Riders, had observed the same a month earlier at the Eden Gardens.
It need not even be an IPL match either. Or even a city with an IPL team. With MS Dhoni, everything is larger than life. It just has to be.
Indian cricket has known megastars before and after Dhoni. It was – is – expected of fans to show up to watch Sachin Tendulkar or Virat Kohli make a hundred or a fifty.
Dhoni of 2023 was different. He had been long gone from international cricket. He was not playing anything outside the IPL. That year, he faced 57 balls in 16 games. In 2024, it would become 73 in 14. His coming out to bat was as uncertain as was his facing a full over.
Yet, match after match, venue after venue, they cheered so loudly for him that the broadcasters tracked the decibel levels.
All that makes one wonder: if he means so much to the fans in away games, what does he mean to Chennai, his city?
Everything is big in Chennai
“At par with the biggest actors,” says my colleague Rahul Iyer, who has spent two years in the city and has relatives there.
It is a massive statement. Even in India, the country that makes the most movies in the world every year, Chennai stands out when it comes to adulation of its legends.
It is not unheard of, for example, to bathe giant cutout posters of actors in milk, a gesture of reverence usually reserved for deities. Actors are not merely celebrated in Chennai: they are worshipped. Some of them veer into politics and run the state. The adulation never stops.
Chepauk has a reputation for being the most intelligent, erudite cricket crowd in the nation. The city has had its share of big names before IPL: CP Johnstone, AG Ram Singh, VV Kumar, S Venkataraghavan, Kris Srikkanth, WV Raman, Robin Singh, S Ramesh. But none of them became Thala.
“If you say ‘Thala’ you have to clarify whether you mean Dhoni or the actor Ajith,” feels Rahul.
The word, by the way, literally means ‘head’, though ‘leader’ is a closer translation.
This was the city the long-haired youth from another corner of the nation, had set out to win over.
A different captain
For decades, cricketers from smaller domestic sides made it to the Indian team, but full-time captaincy was another matter altogether. Many early Indian Test captains were either from or linked to royal families. After Independence, the selectors backed players from the six big centres: Bombay, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Bengal.
The exceptions to this were Vinoo Mankad and Kapil Dev, both of whom had to establish themselves as among the best in the world to get the job; and Nari Contractor, who went to Gujarat only after he did not make the cut for Bombay.
Not Dhoni. Ranchi, his city, had little cricketing legacy to talk about. His debut would have been delayed had the BCCI not launched the Talent Research Development Wing to scout talent from outside the big centres. And at the highest level, while his talent was obvious, there was little indication that he would go on to become the Thala.
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Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid all opted out of the T20 World Cup in 2007, but the experienced Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh were there. Yet, India went for Dhoni. A small-town cricketer with two and a half years of experience behind him leading India in a major tournament was uncharted territory, but Dhoni validated it by leading India to their first global title since 1983.
Ahead of the first ever IPL auction, the BCCI asked every franchise whether they would want an icon cricketer. While the franchise’s brand value would increase, the icon would earn 15 per cent more than their most expensive cricketer. CSK owner N Srinivasan declined. They would end up spending too much on at least two cricketers, he realised.
With Tendulkar as their icon player, Mumbai Indians could not break their bank on Dhoni. CSK got their own unofficial icon. “There can be no bigger icon for me: big hitter, cool finisher, T20 World Cup-winning captain,” R Ashwin would later admit.
Chennai has known gods from other lands. None of “MGR”, Rajinikanth, or Ajith – three of the most celebrated Tamil actors of all time – was born in the state. Neither SP Balasubrahmanyam nor KJ Yesudas, two legendary singers, had Tamil as their first language.
But this was different. The city never had a hero this cricket-mad nation would cheer for in unison. In Dhoni, they found that.
An age-old connection
It is often forgotten that Dhoni had made his Test debut – a rain-washed affair – in Chennai. By the time he returned to the city, to play an ODI against the West Indies in early 2007, he was already the “hottest name in Indian cricket”.
One of the net bowlers then was in awe of the man, about “the way he hits, the way he finishes games, the long hair.” After the session, he clicked a photograph with his hero. Over the years, Ashwin forged a long-standing partnership with Dhoni.
Dhoni led CSK to an IPL title in 2010, then retained it in 2011. In between, he sent Nuwan Kulasekara into the orbits to clinch a World Cup. In 2013, he completed the full set of ICC trophies by winning the Champions Trophy. This was a phase when he could do little wrong – especially in Chennai.
In 2012/13, he played two of his most famous innings in the city. First, an unbeaten 113 to lift India from 29-5 to 227-6 in an ODI against Pakistan. Then his highest Test score, the savage 265-ball 224 against Australia. “Two of the finest knocks we've had here at Chepauk,” feels Anirudh Narayanan, a Tamil Nadu Cricket Association umpire.
Thala for a reason
Then the fixing scandals unfolded. CSK were banned for 2016 and 2017. But the cheers followed Dhoni as he took the field in an unfamiliar Pune shirt. By the time CSK returned to the fold, he was no longer the Indian captain in any format.
If there was any doubt over him retaining his aura, it faded when the CSK fans “reverentially bathed” his cut-out poster in milk. He had arrived.
“Dhoni is THE God! Much like Rajni [actor Rajinikanth] is,” believes Anirudh.
When CSK’s home games were moved out of Chennai to Pune due to a water crisis, the franchise arranged for a special train for fans. They were full. To handle the immense pressure of returning to the fold, Dhoni and coach Stephen Fleming insisted on backing experience. CSK’s “Dad’s Army” won their third title.
The legend continued to grow with every title win. CSK won the IPL in 2021, then in 2023. By then, Dhoni was clearly well past his prime, but you could still hear the CSK fans cheering the fall of their own wickets, as you can even in 2025.
Anirudh, who has been one of them, clarifies: “No crowd member hates [Ravindra] Jadeja at all. The love for MS Dhoni outshines the pity for the previous batter, not just Jadeja, walking off.”
But the batter feels differently. “Sometimes when you are, as an individual, going out to bat, they are shouting from the crowd, literally asking you to get out,” reminisced Ambati Rayudu, who had left the ground amidst celebrations and whistles from his own crowd.
In stature, the man has outgrown the cause of the team. What greater proof of stardom can there be?
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