Faisalabad ferocity, Chennai catharsis

The first Test in Lahore had seen Pakistan declare on 679 and India reply with 410 for 1. Pakistan batted first again in Faisalabad and made 588. How long could this run of mammoth scoring last? Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman added 197 for the second wicket, but four wickets fell for 45 runs to leave India 281 for 5. In only his fifth Test match, MS Dhoni responded to the situation in the only manner he knew then. He pounded three fours in a Mohammad Asif over, slugged successive sixes off Danish Kaneria and raced to his fifty off 34 balls. The pace of scoring barely let up, and Dhoni was eventually out for 148 off 153 balls, having dominated a sixth-wicket stand of 210 with Irfan Pathan. He had been most severe on Shoaib Akhtar, belting him for 46 off 28 balls. It was Dhoni's first Test century, and it was to remain his only hundred outside India.

With Anil Kumble injured, Dhoni led the Test team for only the second time. India had been on the back foot in the drawn first Test, and needed a good first-innings total after choosing to bat. A century stand for the fifth wicket between Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly laid a solid first-day platform, but India were 326 for 6 when Dhoni walked in - a decent position but not yet one from where they could dictate terms. Dhoni put on 109 with Ganguly, and extended India's total to 469 before he was last out for a 124-ball 92. After the bowlers secured a 201-run first-innings lead, Dhoni promoted himself to No. 3 and hastened the declaration with an unbeaten 84-ball 68. India won by 320 runs, and went on to claim a 2-0 win in the four-Test series.

Dhoni had sat out India's series defeat in Sri Lanka the previous year, and the first Test of the return series wasn't going too well when he walked in to bat. Dravid and Yuvraj Singh had rescued India from 32 for 4, but they were still in trouble when they lost Yuvraj. Coming in at 157 for 5, Dhoni played second fiddle to an unusually aggressive Dravid in a 224-run sixth-wicket partnership that powered India to a first-day total of 385 for 6. Dhoni's 110 was only his second Test century, and it turned a calamitous start into a comfortable draw. India went on to win the second and third Tests and rose to No. 1 in the Test rankings.

After 4-0 losses in England and Australia, the first part of India's quest for revenge at home didn't go to plan, with England claiming a historic series win. Under pressure as captain when Australia arrived, Dhoni's first big decision was to play an extra spinner and bat himself at No. 6. Everything was up for grabs when he walked in to bat in the first Test, with India 196 for 4 in reply to Australia's 380. A century stand with Virat Kohli took the score past 300, but wickets tumbled thereafter, and India only led by 26 when they lost their eighth wicket. Dhoni took matters into his own hands from that point, and a merely excellent innings became a truly great one. The single that took Dhoni to 200 also brought up the century stand for the ninth wicket. Bhuvneshwar Kumar's contribution, at that point, was 13. Dhoni hammered 24 fours and six sixes in his 224, which gave India a match-winning 192-run lead. India went on to win the series 4-0.

Outside Asia, Dhoni's short front-foot stride and hard hands made him vulnerable to the moving ball, but he found ways to cope and finished with eight half-centuries in England. Most of those knocks were sparks of lower-order defiance in lost causes, and nowhere was a cause more lost than in Manchester, when India, expecting to make a strong statement with the series one-all, imploded to 8 for 4 on the first morning. It was still the sixth over when Dhoni walked in, and he found a typically idiosyncratic method to counter the bounce and movement. He walked out of his crease and across his stumps before the bowlers released, and left everything outside his eye-line. Against the short ball he simply dropped his wrists and wore the impact on his chest and shoulders. Dhoni was ninth out for 71 out of a total of 152, and only two others got into double figures, with India making a record-equalling six ducks. In the next Test at The Oval, Dhoni was at it again, scoring 82 out of a first-innings total of 148, with a second-highest score of 18.