Divya Deshmukh Is Like MS Dhoni, Says Ex-coach Srinath Narayanan

Abundantly talented but more significantly, incredibly cool in crunch situations, that's how India's 88th Grandmaster and World Cup winner Divya Deshmukh was described by her formative coach Srinath Narayanan, who feels the 19-year-old chess wizard's composure is comparable only to cricket great M S Dhoni.

Divya became a part of the growing list of young achievers in Indian chess by clinching the FIDE Women's World Cup title in Batumi, Georgia, defeating an opponent twice her age in Koneru Humpy. The all-indian final was a testament to India's growth and the fact that it stretched till the tie-breaker was a tribute to the depth of talent that the country has produced.

The 38-year-old Humpy is one of the most accomplished and compact players who has been the flag-bearer of Indian women's chess for more than two decades. She has won countless titles, including two World Rapid Championships, two Asian Games gold medals and has also been a part of the Chess Olympiad gold-winning team.

Divya winning against her was a glorious moment for Indian chess.

"She's quite an aggressive player. But with time, Divya has become more all-round, more versatile. I think she's equally good across all the different formats... Classical, Rapid and Blitz," Srinath told PTI over phone from Chennai.

"And her strength is, I think, turning up in those big moments, crunch situations. Like how Mahendra Singh Dhoni used to win the matches in the last over.

"I saw something similar in Divya in those last-round situations or situations where everything was hanging in the high-pressure moments. She used to perform incredibly well under pressure in important matches." Divya became the fourth woman and 88th overall from the country to become a Grandmaster, something which looked unlikely at the start of the tournament at the beginning of the month.

Srinath, who coached the Nagpur teenager till 2020, says he understood that she was talented as early as in 2018. He also feels that she has the ability to become a world champion, having qualified for the Candidates Tournament.

Divya's career graph so far has shown that she is driven and likes to take the challenge head on.

A three-time gold medallist at the Olympiad, Divya has also won multiple gold medals at the Asian Championship, the World Junior Championship as well as the World Youth Championship.

However, coming into the women's World Cup and beating some of the biggest names in the business needed more than just luck, and here's where her talent came to the fore.

Srinath says he found Divya "incredibly talented" during their first meeting at the airport in 2016, when the team was leaving for Turkey to play in the World U-16 Olympiad.

"So, it (association) started around 2018. We met at the World Under-16 Olympiad. The team was going to Turkey. I was the coach of the team and I met her for the first time at the airport.

"She was incredibly talented. And she also had a certain kind of ability to win these big games and tournaments. So, in the very first tournament that I coached her, she won a very important game in the last round against Iran," said Srinath about the chess prodigy from Nagpur, whose parents are doctors.

"And because of that victory, we were able to win the silver medal in Turkey. I worked with her until 2020. And after that, during the (COVID-19) lockdown, the interactions became less." With her achievements, Srinath feels she was already "overqualified in terms of her playing level when she came into the women's World Cup." "She is very strong. And in terms of her potential, she was very much there (at the GM level even before the tournament started)." He feels it was Divya's talent and aptitude that set her apart from the rest of the players when he first started coaching her.

"She was, I think, way more talented than most of the girls. She showed that talent during the World U-16 Olympiad in 2018. After that, during the 2020 Online Olympiad, Divya was instrumental in our win over China, which was a very important game. And she was one of the winners.

"Post that, in the same tournament, she was also winning in the final against Russia. Although the match was stopped halfway due to global internet outage and both the teams shared the gold, Divya was clearly one with the most promising position for us in that match." There was a phase between 2020 and 2022 when Divya wasn't doing well but Srinath says it was more on account of the pandemic.

"She, I think, constantly kept winning big tournaments, big events. If anything, she only slowed down around 2020 to 2022 when the pandemic happened. And she wouldn't play in a lot of tournaments. So she took some time off and focused on her studies and started catching up with all those things."

So where does he see her two-three years down the line?

"I think she has a very good chance of becoming the women's world champion or at least be on that path. In general, she is quite confident (going into any important tournament)."