The 80 runs that MS Dhoni contributed in the 151-run third-wicket stand between him and Virat Kohli in the third One-day International against New Zealand has raised an intriguing point about the player. Coming in an important game as it did, the effect of Dhoni’s knock was also that his accreditation as a player came to the fore after a lengthy pause.

He’s still the captain of the Indian ODI and T20 teams, but where Kohli has become the messiah of the nation’s cricketing performances, Dhoni looks to have been relegated. Inversely, the brand that his name has come to be has continued to peak. Effectively then, Dhoni the brand has overshadowed Dhoni the player.

It hasn’t been a development that came about suddenly, but one that has been building steadily with every success garnered by Dhoni, not only as the captain but long before that. Right from when he started out as a keeper-batsman with flamboyance and sureness, about a decade ago, in 2006.

The IPL affectations

Dhoni’s responsibilities and stature grew simultaneously, each intertwined with the other, during the next couple of years as he got more laurels to the country. Be it leading India’s win in the maiden ICC World T20 in 2007 – a win that was also the result of few notably unorthodox ideas; or seeing India take the pole position in the ICC Test cricket rankings in 2009, Dhoni’s purposeful actions were resounding of his intent to keep breaking down the limitations set for the Indian cricket team. Winning the 2011 World Cup as India did was the crescendo of the team’s thriving exploits and the captaincy module propounded by Dhoni.

The influencing change to this dual persona of Dhoni was however brought about by the Indian Premier League. Bought by the Chennai Super Kings before the inaugural edition in 2008, Dhoni was the team’s brightest star. Before the franchise was suspended for two years by the Supreme Court-appointed Justice Lodha committee last year for its involvement in the 2013 spot-fixing and betting scandal, the records set by CSK, and by extent Dhoni, in their seven-year-long IPL presence was monumental. Aside of these records made, broken and re-made, Dhoni the Jharkhand-native went on to be the face of Chennai.

While he wasn’t opposed to it, not that he had any reason to do so, handling all these charges caught up with him. The CSK captain became further entrenched in his duties to the side, even as he started having missteps in his role as the national captain, especially in the Test side. The legion of fans of the Super Kings’ hero grew in number, as did the number of critics bandying about the monotony in his Test captaincy. And for once, Dhoni didn’t have any out-of-the-box solutions to offer.

Self-doubts overriding self-belief

When playing for the national side, he did not stop giving answers, nor did he stop playing his heart out. But his replies reflected his frustrations and his game started sliding, for the worse. And where once his pre- and post-match analyses held a biting sense of humour, he took a refuge in sarcasm to vent his frustrations.

The spot-fixing scandal presented its own set of problems to Dhoni, which further marginalised him as an unbiased player. There were ponderings as to whether he was the right man to continue leading the Indian team. His abrupt decision to end his Test career midway through the 2014-'15 Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia did not go down well. After observing how differently Kohli took over the Test captaincy, talks of him being the worthy successor to Dhoni in the shorter formats turned ominous.

A turnaround?

Dhoni’s future in the Indian team continues to be cloudy. It however did not stop him from being picked by the Rising Pune Super Giants, one of the new IPL franchises that replaced CSK and the Rajasthan Royals. Dhoni’s reputation of his days with CSK preceded him, with RPS fans hoping that he would turn out to be the poster-boy of their success as well. Likewise, the recently released biopic on him has been tremendously successful, reinforcing his popularity once again. Neither did much to realign his name to what he had started out as.

Dhoni’s scoring against New Zealand, against the backdrop of the Kohli mania, was perhaps his way of indicating that he wasn’t done, despite imbalanced career refinements. As Kohli’s name takes precedence, possibly starting what could be a manifestation of a similar conflict, the skipper could not have asserted his mien any better.