Most of the impact of India's loss to South Africa on Saturday was felt before the South Africans started their chase. Hapless fans watching the last nine Indian wickets tumble for a mere 29 runs had someone from the team to empathise with though.

Like them, Captain MS Dhoni was watching his team mates depart from much closer, from the non-striker's end. For once, the look on his face seemed to give away what was going on in his head – captain cool seemed fuming hot, but in his own aloof way.

At the post-match press conference, the pragmatic Indian captain said, “When you try to hit those big shots, you tend to forget that you are playing for the country and not for the crowd. In the process of trying to get those 20 extra runs, you end up scoring 40 runs less.”

“Some were playing to the gallery rather than for the country,” he surmised.

All our water cooler, tea time and social media cricket experts have started a critical analysis of Dhoni's captaincy post-India's tied match against England. This too will pass. For every expert with a view on ‘What's wrong with MS Dhoni's captaincy?' there seems to be an equal and opposite force. The good thing is that this force is not necessarily opinionated by inherent inertia.

Fact remains that we haven't seen a captain as dynamic and direct as MS Dhoni in a while. Arguable, yes, but you cannot dismiss the hypothesis because it's very logical.

The core of brand Dhoni, according to several people studying celebrity and leader brands, is his fearlessness and his cool quotient.

The ‘nothing to lose' mindset has held him in good stead, and has trickled down to the youngest members of the team. Perhaps a little more than necessary into the likes of Sreesanth, but that was what lifted us as a nation when the team under Dhoni came back with a T20 World Cup.

Today, in a scenario when mind games are common through the media, we have Dean Jones telling Dhoni that he's dreaming if he thinks India will win the Cup. Wasn't this ex-Australian cricketer part of some failed cricket league until recently?

The nation is looking to its fearless captain to prove detractors wrong.

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