Win or lose, MS Dhoni and McCullum are the perfect templates for future captains

One is calm. The other is a riot. One stays behind the wicket and the other prowls at mid-off. One is an opening batsman always seemingly in a hurry to catch the last train home, and the other is the cool finisher, forever patient like a monk, pushing it to the last ball. Two different personalities leading two different teams but both of them have led their sides to pole positions in the World Cup.

Brendon McCullum and MS Dhoni, teammates at Chennai Super Kings (CSK), are at the opposite ends of the captaincy spectrum. “Captaincy is the art of slowing time” wrote Ed Smith about MS Dhoni’s style of captaincy that led India to several trophies, most significantly the World Cup in 2011. That’s the most common definition of the job of a skipper. But time is a relative concept. It can be made to slow down or sped up. McCullum has been approaching it entirely differently, and in the process, consigning to the garbage bin the established thoughts. He has been on an all out attack, speeding up time that the oppositions haven’t had the moment to recognize what has hit them.

Dhoni is the fan of the slow burn while McCullum is the bullet train. Both styles have their own strengths that include the weaknesses as well. In an interview , former England captain Mike Brearley said, “Calmness is a very good quality in a captain. So is passion… It is sometimes very difficult to keep that balance right. Your calmness can turn into or become a sort of detachment, which is not helpful… On the other hand, passion can become destructive. It can become scapegoating, you can become too angry, you can become too exercised about things when you don’t have enough detachment or calm. There is a balance between these things.”

If one were to draw a Venn diagram of McCullum’s and Dhoni’s styles of captaincy, the intersection would be the traits of the ideal captain but one cannot have everything. In their approaches, these two are as disparate as possible.

McCullum brings the attitude needed to win a Test match to ODIs. He has looked to bowl the oppositions out as early as possible giving his bowlers a lot of close-n catchers. There have been several occasions in this world cup, New Zealand have had three and four slips and close-in catchers galore to wipe out the opposition once their pacers had an opening. Whereas Dhoni, a master of the shorter game and the perfect reader of the pressures of a run-chase, takes his limited over expertise to the Test game. Obviously, both are a product of the resources at their disposal, especially bowlers.

Of course, a captain is only as good as the players he has in the team. Sir Richard Hadlee, the greatest cricketer to come out of New Zealand clearly stated that aspect of Brendon’s captaincy. “It’s one thing to have [the aggressive> style, [it’s another> to create a team that can back it up, and that’s what I think Brendon’s got. But it’s taken a while in the making, but I think you can see the fruits of it.” He gave McCullum the highest praise by saying that he would have liked to play under him.

Stephen Fleming, who handles them both at CSK, added: “Those rave reviews that McCullum is getting are right. I think over two years he’s helped built a brand of cricket that is aggressive, and in some ways it’s creating the new way to play the ODI game… And Dhoni as well, he’s had the bowlers to do it.”

Dhoni has the feeling of “been there, done that” in his backpocket, ready to be summoned at any time of need. The experience of winning all the major trophies in cricket, with a variety of players, has allowed him to chart a path that is his own.

The 2007 World T20 was won with mostly no-namers and himself a relative unknown as captain, in an unexplored format. The 2011 World Cup was won with a team of experienced veterans bolstered by some youth, in home conditions. The 2013 Champions Trophy victory was achieved in English conditions on the back of a newer generation of players, who have now become the core in the 2015 campaign. All along, Dhoni has tried to stay equanimous, meeting the two imposters -triumph and disaster- and treating them the same.

It looks nearly impossible that these two captains and their sides will not cross paths in this World Cup. And when that happens, it will be an interesting study to observe the two go about their jobs, shepherding their wards and outwitting the other. Win or lose, they are both guaranteed to provide outstanding templates for future generations of captains to learn the art of captaincy.