The last of the OGs

Can an event feel improbable and inevitable simultaneously?

This great paradox was at play as MS Dhoni walked out to bat at the Wankhede Stadium on April 14 to the swirling, interminable noise that has boomed across India's cricket stadiums these last two years.

Only four balls were left in CSK's innings: not much time to process the situation, bowling plans or even the emotions of the moment. A nudge around the corner to pass the strike to his partner batting on 66 off 38 was a perfectly plausible and reasonable outcome to expect. But once Dhoni tapped his thigh-pad into place, thrusted his thumb through the helmet grill and crouched in his stance to face Hardik Pandya, there was a glimpse of how this would end. It has been happening in this league for 16 years, the muscle memory was too strong, traditions just too deeply ingrained...

Mumbai, the spiritual home of Indian cricket, has been a conflicted and confused city this summer, unwilling to silently embrace the changes thrust upon it. And yet, it found itself collectively drawn to some agreeably familiar and comforting old habits when it played host to Dhoni, Virat Kohli and, of course, Rohit Sharma over a span of three days in mid-April. The roars that followed the 'Big Three' during their every move in those two games felt like a celebration as well as an expression of real-time nostalgia towards the league's OGs even as a little distance away, on the internet, hostile online fandoms continued to fire off insults and memes at each other.

At 17, the IPL is on the cusp of adulthood and has grown faster than ever in these last two years. Still headlining three of the more popular franchises, Dhoni, Kohli and Rohit are, in many ways, the last vestiges of an era of the IPL that will soon acquire bygone status. In less than two months from now, Dhoni will be 43 and may have played his last competitive game. Rohit and Kohli are 37 and 35 respectively and have at least one more cycle of trying to keep up with the game's evolutionary tide. Saturday's clash between Kohli's RCB and Dhoni's CSK - though neither man leads his franchise anymore - billed as 'the last dance' will, in some ways, mark the end of an era that incidentally began in Bengaluru 16 summers ago.

***

It was a dance that broke the Indian internet a couple of weeks before this IPL season got underway. Bollywood's three biggest drawcards who'd split the movie-loving public of India into three for over three decades - Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan and Salman Khan - were on stage together, shaking a leg at the glitzy Ambani pre-wedding party. It was a weighty moment for followers of a certain vintage, when Bollywood held India captive with its larger-than-life heroes, and when going to the movies represented a community experience. Like watching Dhoni, Kohli or Rohit in the IPL, when team loyalties get pushed to the wayside.

As with this IPL season, when many traditional norms of T20 cricket have come under the scanner, the alleged fading influence of Bollywood with its traditional style of story-telling was a hot topic a few years ago. More so in the wake of the revolution from non-Hindi film centres in the southern part of the country, as well as the OTT platforms offering enough binge-worthy content.

And like with the IPL, newer, younger stars broke through, who were more accessible. While the pandemic helped hasten production of content that could be consumed from the living room couch while challenging the supposed old tropes, nostalgia has returned to the fore as a great draw. Like in the case of Shahrukh's three releases in 2023, where millions flocked to the cinemas for a glimpse of his return to the screen after five years, still playing the ravishing muscular hero at 57. It was a bit like Dhoni at 42, walking out in the last over and smashing a handful of meaty boundaries.

Right from the conception of the IPL, narrative parallels have been inevitable between Bollywood and cricket. Recall for instance how the franchises have started announcing the arrival of these three superstars to their pre-season camps on social media. The video invariably starts with a shot of a snazzy car rolling into a plush team hotel. The door opens and a first leg pops into the frame. Dramatic music then builds to a crescendo-heightening anticipation, before all of the hero takes up almost all of your screen as well as your collective consciousness. Like it's the opening scene of one of innumerable Bollywood blockbusters.

The IPL was always mounted on personalities. The concept of 'icon players' in the early years was an opportunity for each franchise to leverage it. Over the tournament's evolution, all personality cults found themselves distilled into the three primary colours of red, blue and yellow. And the IPL has only been happy to ride on the popularity of Kohli, Rohit and Dhoni. Broadcast ratings for matches featuring these three far supersede those of games not involving any of them. Two of these franchises - RCB and MI - even command the highest gate entry prices, aided of course by their home cities with spending potential to match the hero worship. A ticket to watch this final showdown between Kohli and Dhoni, for example, could make one poorer by as much as INR 79894 just to be richer for the 'I was there' claim.

***

This Dhoni-Kohli-Rohit appeal is cross-generational, evident in the crowds that flock to stadiums bearing 7, 18 or 45 on the backs of their shirts: groups of schoolchildren mingled with chattering grey-haired men and women, young mothers and smartly dressed corporates, who often come straight from the offices, even if to see Dhoni bat four balls in the final over of an innings.

And there are no 'away' games for the trio. They've transcended the notion of club-versus-club loyalty and even those of victory and defeat for their teams. Earlier in the season, CSK fans danced their way out of the Vizag stadium following Dhoni's 37* off 16 when in fact his team had fallen 20 runs short in the chase. On the other hand, a persecution complex has been the overarching theme for both Mumbai Indians and the RCB's campaign. Kohli received sympathy for continuously propping up a franchise that seemingly unfailingly lets him down by picking dysfunctional bowling attacks while at the Wankhede Stadium, new captain Hardik Pandya was regularly and resoundingly booed for what was perceived to be an opportunistic snatching of the captaincy from Rohit.

All of this is as much a function of the trio's IPL achievements as it is the accumulated goodwill of playing and performing for India. At least two of them - Dhoni and Rohit - played for India even before the IPL came along in April 2008, while Kohli made his international bow merely three months later. Which is what gives this coming match an end-of-an-era vibe, at least in terms of the way in which cricketing legacies are generated in India.

This is not to say that Indian cricket no longer produces stars of that same quality. If anything, there'll never be a dearth. This IPL season is the perfect example that the tournament remains the perfect platform, an OTT one in some ways, for the arrival of an overnight sensation. And there's enough incumbent star value anyway with the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja. Not to forget the generation right behind them in Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Riyan Parag.

But will they end up eventually superseding traditional team loyalties and creating auras that lift them from stardom to superstardom, like in the case of Dhoni, Kohli and Rohit? The bigger question is if they'll be allowed to. Perhaps we are already seeing the tournament moving away from a small number of personalities that command a lot of attention to an almost decentralised, more democratised dispersal of attention, which is not necessarily bad. But it could well be a sign that there might never be a time again when you'll consider chasing after a ticket that costs INR 79894 for four hours on a day with an 80 per cent forecast for rain.