He stole a march on everyone..

MS Dhoni stole a march over other captaincy hopefuls with his bold leadership and aggressive batting.

Maintain a diary and record your daily progress to improve English speaking skills. Tracking your progress will help you be regular and also, over a period of time give you a valuable ready reference.

In this post, we discuss the phrase, “Steal a march on”.

Imagine you leading your troops in a march past. Everyone is marching in perfect coordination and you as the proud leader, are marching ahead with the head held high, ready to receive the shining trophy from the chief guest.

Just then, from nowhere, your best friend comes along with his team, marching away in equal glory, perfect coordination, head held high, sharp commands et al. What’s worse, he reaches the winner’s post before you do and takes the shining trophy.

What has he done? He has just stolen a march on you.

So, when you are all set to win and get your goal, someone comes along, performs better than you, outdoes you and defeats you, he has stolen a march on you.

Let’s see some examples:

1. Arvind Kejriwal stole a march on BJP by raising the issue of shady dealings by Robert Vadra. BJP had these details for long but was dithering on whether or not to go public.
2. Salman Khan stole a march on Shahrukh with back to back bumper hits like Wanted, Dabangg, Bodyguard etc while the latter’s films have struggled at the box office.
3. West Indies stole a march on the favorites Sri Lanka with a superior all round display. They batted, fielded and bowled like champions and gave everyone their full money’s worth.

When the goal of two parties is the same but one of them smartly upstages the other, it is said that they have stolen a march on the former.

Some more examples:

1. Dhoni stole a march on all his contemporaries with his bold leadership, aggressive batting style and some timely luck. When he entered the team, there were many captaincy hopefuls but now, he seems to be the unanimous choice for the captain.
2. Several actors were auditioned but Manoj Bajpai stole a march on others and secured the role of Bhiku Mhatre.