It’s been a while since Mahendra Singh Dhoni hit a one-day hundred against a Test-playing nation — four years, to be precise. In the last week of October 2005, he had smashed an incredible 183 against Sri Lanka in Jaipur. And while four years is a very long time in Indian cricket, it’s remarkable how much has changed between then and Wednesday, when he powered his way to a match-winning 124 against Australia on Wednesday.

In 2005, Rahul Dravid was the captain and Dhoni an impact player who looked a bit like Tarzan. Now, Dhoni has graduated to the top job and is seen as more of a brainy than a brawny cricketer. During this long journey, he has lost a lot of hair — some to the barber’s scissors and some to pressures of responsibility.

But today he showed that a few things had been retained.

While approaching his 100, he hit two strokes that brought back memories of the Dhoni that seemed to have disappeared during his transformation from carefree trailblazer to careful accumulator. The bottom-handed, agricultural shot, which sends the ball soaring over the fence with an unorthodox flick of the wrist at the end of the swing had made Dhoni an instant poster boy in Indian cricket. When on 90, he rediscovered that shot, hitting Mitchell Johnson over long-on for six, and following it up in the next over with another one to reach three figures. All this right in the middle of his first bad patch as captain and a raucous debate on where he should be batting.

... contd.