Why the Brand Called Dhoni Refuses to Retire

I have never met MS Dhoni. No handshake, no photo, no obligatory anecdote about how surprisingly humble he was. Yet I’ve watched him for nearly two decades, which in India counts as a kind of long-distance relationship. From the long-haired rebel who rattled the old guard to the greying elder who makes even silence profitable, Dhoni has remained a fixture without ever becoming overexposed.

That distance is deliberate.

Conversations with veteran sports writers and former colleagues over the years only confirmed what the eye already knew. Ayaz Memon has given him a clean chit on and off the field while not sparing him when he fouled up, Clayton Murzello once said Dhoni’s real talent was making chaos feel optional. G. Viswanath admired his emotional insulation, the ability to stay untouched by the moment, whether it was a World Cup final or a dead rubber. Their praise was always measured, almost disciplined, as if Dhoni demanded understatement even from those analysing him.

Closer to home my Pune neighbour and sports management professional Sidharth Deshmukh, who had been part of Dhoni’s management circle, offered sharper glimpses. What struck him was not celebrity excess but process: clear boundaries, predictable routines, a refusal to overexpose. Stardom treated like a long-term investment, not a daily splurge. Dear friend, Dubai-based branding and communications' guru Ritwik Sen says the only cricketer to come close to his idol Gavaskar is Dhoni in terms of post international brand build and relevance.

Which brings us to the question that resurfaces every IPL season, as stubborn as the man himself: why is Dhoni, now 44, still playing? Why is his light not kept under the bushel?

He has outlasted formats, teammates, captains, and even the template of what a modern cricketer is supposed to look like. Every year, someone declares it time. The arguments are reasonable: knees creaking, bat speed down, reflexes slower. These are facts, not insults. Cricket is not a nostalgia league.

Yet he persists.

The error lies in treating this as purely a cricketing decision. It stopped being that years ago. Dhoni today is a brand that happens to play cricket, not the other way around, and brands of this magnitude are not quietly mothballed.

For Chennai Super Kings, with their Manjal podi (tumeric powder) team colour, is not sentiment masquerading as strategy. He is culture wearing pads. CSK’s greatest strength has never been raw talent alone; it has been behavioural consistency: calm when plans collapse, measured when everything clicks. Dhoni didn’t just captain teams; he trained them to distrust panic. That DNA is not replaced with a press release and a new jersey number. Incidentally, MSD played for Pune during the 2016-2017 season when CSK were suspended.

Even after handing over the captaincy, his presence feels less like chasing applause and more like overseeing a handover. He is giving Ruturaj Gaikwad room to grow into leadership without being buried under the tag of “Dhoni’s successor.” He is allowing the franchise to evolve without the usual sporting melodrama of instant verdicts and wild overcorrections.

It is an unglamorous job. It doesn’t show up in strike rates or stumpings. It shows up in youngsters who look oddly unflustered under pressure, in selection calls that only make sense months later, in a team that rarely looks like it is improvising its way out of trouble. I remember him saying during some presser that pressure is part and parcel of a player's responsibility.

From a brand perspective, this is stewardship, not self-indulgence.

Dhoni has always played the visibility game differently. While others chased every microphone, he cultivated absence. Few interviews. Fewer opinions. Almost no explanations. Scarcity still drives value, even if every social media consultant now has a slide on it.

The praise he attracts mirrors that restraint. Sachin Tendulkar called him the best captain he played under. Virat Kohli spoke of his unmatched commitment. Rohit Sharma credited Dhoni’s decision to push him up the order as career-defining. Ricky Ponting admired his self-reliance. Kumar Sangakkara noted how pressure quietly shifts to the bowler whenever Dhoni is at the crease.

None of it is about flamboyance. All of it is about trust.

That trust is why the brand refuses to age the usual way. Bodies slow down; brands fade only when they stop meaning something. Dhoni still means too much to fans, broadcasters, sponsors, and most importantly, to the ecosystem inside CSK.

Of course, not everyone buys the mythology. Gautam Gambhir has repeatedly questioned Dhoni’s leadership choices and the halo around him. Others have pointed to selection calls that sidelined deserving players, or argued that timing and luck played as big a role as temperament.

These criticisms are fair. Every long-serving leader collects dissent; the absence of it would be stranger. What stands out is how Dhoni handled it. He never argued back, never clarified, never tried to rewrite the narrative. Silence, once again, did the job. Over time, outcomes tended to outlast opinions.

Age, though, is the one critic that cannot be stared down. At 44, Dhoni is no longer competing with peers; he is competing with the memory of a younger, helicopter-finishing version of himself. That is an unfair contest, but sport rarely pretends to be fair.

From a business view, keeping him visible is not indulgence. It is calculated asset management. Stadiums fill differently when he walks out to the crease. Broadcast numbers spike. Sponsors relax. Young players learn leadership not from PowerPoint decks but from proximity.

The irony is almost too neat: the louder the calls for retirement, the stronger the proof of relevance. Nobody begs irrelevant figures to leave; they simply stop being discussed.

One day, without warning or ceremony, Dhoni will walk away. When he does, CSK will still feel like CSK — calm, organised, unhurried. That continuity will be his truest farewell.