Matter of the mind

MS Dhoni has not put too many false steps in the short time since he has been captaining the Indian side. Where he has impressed the most is in his ability to deflect the media's questions with jokes and (gasp) corporate-speak. For a guy who has no more than a high school education (and by all accounts just a rudimentary one at that) he is erudite and displays an acumen well beyond his ears.

At press conferences, his answers are elaborate and informative, while eschewing typical captain-speak ("boys batted well, the boys bowled in the right areas", etc.) most of the time. It is not as if he is always ready with a quip. It is just that even when he is giving the same information, he takes the time to elaborate on what he means by it.

Case in point: He takes a simple statement that the team is not underprepared because they haven't practiced much at the current Test venue (yawn) and turns that into a lesson on how to unclutter a mind. The stock answer would have been that the players are all professionals and know how to prepare for the game at such short notice, etc. Here's how Dhoni elaborated on it.

"Mentally we are right there. When it comes to the mind it depends on what you're feeding into the mind. The mind doesn't know if it's Napier or what you're feeding. You come and say 'this is Napier', and it believes it's Napier. If you see, it's an abstract. When people say 'he's in form', nobody has seen form. It's a state of mind where you are confident and you think very positively and everything you think about, you think it's very achievable. It's about how you treat the mind. One day here, one day there doesn't really make a difference. Preparation-wise, we are up to the mark."