If you thought Virat Kohli gave the most dramatic answer to his critics, Mahendra Singh Dhoni showed that he was a past master at it.

Kohli, after making a magnificent century in the Perth Test, pointed to his bat and gestured that it was doing all the talking. Dhoni did not need any such theatrical gestures. He had already made his worst critics eat crow long before he deposited left-arm pacer Jason Behrendorff into the stands in the final over at the Adelaide Oval on Tuesday.

That massive hit ensured that India drew level with the Aussies’ total of 298 and the single off the next delivery signalled the win with six wickets and four balls to spare.

Dhoni, 55 not out off 54 balls with two sixes, did what only Dhoni can. He is, without doubt, Mr Cool personified and the Adelaide innings again showed why he has ice running through his veins as he took a unruffled, unhurried approach right through the run chase when the asking rate was getting increasingly worrisome.

Of course, it helped that he had master batsman Kohli for the company through most of his batting. But it also equally true that Kohli could bat and run between the wickets in the manner he did only because he had faith in Dhoni’s support at the other end.

In fact, the two fed off each other during the run chase and as long as they were together no target was out of reach. Importantly their risk-free approach unnerved and spread panic in the opposition ranks even as it brought a sense of calm and confidence in the visitors’ dressing room.

In recent time Dhoni has copped a lot of criticism — most of it unwarranted — from folks who have not realised that age is just a number, a piece of statistics that has no meaning when the player concerned has the skill and fitness to make light of it.

Dhoni, now in his late 30s, is probably fitter than he was at the start of his career. He has more time to spend in the gym and look after himself. Additionally, he picks and chooses his matches and hence his muscles and joints are not subject to normal wear and tear.

There could be a lot of cricketers who are half his age and still not as fit. Importantly there is no replacement for Dhoni. Not when it comes to wicket-keeping and certainly not when it comes to keeping your calm while batting in a chase.

Dhoni showed these qualities in abundance in the first ODI itself. He came in to bat when India were 4 for three. Another wicket then would have demolished India’s chances in the match. But he bided his time, gave Rohit Sharma the comfort and confidence that he would be around and went about stitching a brilliant recovery.

His 51 in the Sydney ODI was worth its weight in gold. But for that dubious LBW decision that aborted his innings, Rohit and he would have put India in the ascendency.

At the Adelaide Oval too, chasing a mammoth total was not a cakewalk. Luckily there was no top-order collapse to recover from. Instead, Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit provided a good start.

Kohli too was getting into the groove. But at 161 for three in the 31st over with just over half the target achieved, India had their backs to the wall.

The target might not have seemed stiff. But the batsmen to come were not really top bracket. Additionally, the ball would get softer with each passing over and thus trying big hits at inopportune times could have been disastrous.

This is where the calculated batsmanship of Dhoni came to the fore. He and Kohli placed the ball into vacant gaps and ran hard. Kohli had just five boundaries and two sixes in his century while Dhoni smashed just two sixes. The rest of the runs were earned the hard way.

But what this did was to keep the scoreboard steadily ticking over and at the same time denied the Aussies a wicket at a crucial stage of the chase.

The 82-run stand in just 12 overs was highlighted by brilliant running between the wickets in the searing heat and humidity of Adelaide. Kohli not only gave a demonstration of his batting class but showed that he and Dhoni totally trusted each other in their calling and running.

Importantly for India Dhoni has come good with flying colours. His two 50s in this match and in the previous ODI both had the stamp of a master craftsman at work. This innings, in particular, showed why Dhoni had no peer when it came to the art of batting under pressure.

Dhoni, in fact, simply soaked up the pressure and passed on that confidence to his partners both in Adelaide and at Sydney while the opposition fell into disarray.

Indeed no praise can be too high for Dhoni. Batting second and chasing a stiff target is the very definition of pressure in cricket. And nobody in world cricket revels under these conditions better than Mahendra Singh Dhoni. For the league of extraordinary cricketers like him, pressure is an ally and something to embrace and revel in. He did it again in Adelaide and he's been doing it consistently for years. Nothing flusters him, not even the critics.