MSD World Cup spot no given after T20 axing
Dhoni’s place in the scheme of things for the 2019 World Cup was never in doubt. But the game plan for the 2020 World T20 in Australia was not clear. By dropping him for the T20s against West Indies and Australia on Friday, the national selectors have showed they are ready to move on.
It took some time coming. Dhoni has never made public his retirement plans. The one time he was asked after the 2016 World T20 semi-final loss, he called that Australian journalist on to the dais and made an embarrassing spectacle out of a question that was not out of place. His logic was simple — it was preposterous to ask Dhoni about retirement when he is still at peak fitness.
Clearly, doesn’t cut it anymore. In the time since Dhoni suddenly quit Test cricket — never really his first liking — he has had a bumpy ride in the shorter formats. With Dhoni around, last-over finishes should have been in India’s comfort zone, but Kagiso Rabada (11 runs needed in Kanpur ODI, Oct 2015), Neville Madziva
(eight needed in Harare T20, June
2016) and Dwayne Bravo (eight needed in Fort Lauderhill T20, Aug 2016) took turns at eroding that image. Picking on specific losses may seem unfair to a person who has after his Test retirement hit a century against England, blasted 52 off 28 balls in a T20I against South Africa and has a strike rate of at least 120 against top T20I teams. But when you are that one person who is allowed to script one’s career, even the smallest errors tend to get played up.
And there is no doubt Dhoni’s approach to batting has changed big time.
Taking a match to the wire was always his way of maximising the chances of winning but by consuming more balls, he has inadvertently impeded India’s cause on occasion. Constant shuffling of batting positions hasn’t helped too. That is why the emergence of Rishabh Pant — an explosive, like-for-like replacement who can bat anywhere — has finally given Virat Kohli the confidence to rubber stamp Dhoni’s phasing out.
It has left Dhoni in a pickle. Dropping him for the T20s reduces his scope of performance when every outing should have mattered before going to England, where he averages 36.94 — the only country apart from South Africa where his ODI average drops below 40. Dhoni will still go into the World Cup in mid-2019 on the back of IPL but he now basically gets 10 matches (including the eight ODIs in Australia and New Zealand) after the Pune ODI to assuage critics. Any wobble here and no one can rule out a lastminute change of heart. Unbelievable it may sound, but not inconceivable. After all, Dhoni did just get dropped.