CLAMOUR TO REMOVE DHONI FROM CAPTAINCY IS GROWING
A host of former players including question the Indian skipper’s negative tactics during the recently conluded Test series in South Africa and New Zealand.
the ridiculous. His approach hasn’t changed drastically since he took over full-time leadership in 2008. He was never a proactive captain in the Mark Taylor-Michael Clarke mould. Even in Indian conditions, the underlying theme was to score lots of runs and then exert pressure through the spinners. Field placements were seldom aggressive. Instead, Dhoni relied on drying up the runs to induce frustration and false shots.
It’s also extremely doubtful whether even Taylor could have employed the tactics that he did if he had the current crop of Indian bowlers to lead. At times on the tours of South Africa and New Zealand, the pace bowlers were magnificent. But during key passages of play – while chasing victories at The Wanderers and Basin Reserve – they were listless and unthreatening. You never saw two good bowling innings strung together, and without that you don’t win Test matches.
The spinners had no joy at all. Ravindra Jadeja made no impression with the ball in New Zealand, just as R Ashwin had been a non-factor in South Africa. Some, like Ganguly, have used their failures to argue in favour of the likes of Harbhajan Singh and Pragyan Ojha. It’s easy to forget that Harbhajan was dropped because he wasn’t even making an impact on favourable surfaces at home.
It’s also easy to overlook just how tough it can be for slow bowlers to adapt to alien conditions. Anil Kumble, India’s most successful spinner by a mile, took five wickets and averaged 90 on a tour of Australia in 1999. It wasn’t till he was well into his 30s that Kumble mastered the art of bowling with the Kookaburra ball, whose seam is far less pronounced than on the SG balls used for home Tests.
The Asia Cup presents Virat Kohli with the perfect platform to showcase his own leadership qualities. It’s an important competition, but failure there will not result in the sort of angst that always accompanies an early exit from, say, the World Cup. He also gets to lead the nucleus of the side that will journey to Australia and New Zealand in a year’s time to defend that World Cup title.
Kohli has been earmarked for such a position from the time he led India to Under-19 glory in 2008. There have been negative headlines in the interim, but by and large he has shown tremendous maturity and composure over the past couple of years.
As far as 50-over cricket is concerned, he is also very much the undisputed leader of the batting pack. His record on the whole, and especially in run chases, is astonishing. Even at the last Asia Cup, when India missed out on a place in the final, there was the consolation of Kohli’s magnificent 183 against Pakistan, in a match now remembered as the last one that Sachin Tendulkar played for India in coloured clothes.
After the disappointments of the recent past, the focus will be on how well Kohli leads. But just as important for the future will be how fringe bowlers like Ishwar Pandey and Varun Aaron perform. Not to mention Stuart Binny, who might just be the short-term answer to the allrounder conundrum.
Over to Dhaka.
Dileep Premachandran is editor-in-chief of Wisden India
The clamour for removing Indian captain Mahender Singh Dhoni from his post as captain of the Test team is growing by each passing day. The Indian captain has been accused of employing negative tactics and that has proved to be his bête noire on many occasions.
Dhoni who at one point of time was called as Captain Cool and the “Man with The Midas Touch” seems to have completely lost the plot when it comes to leading his team in the longer version of the game.
Former India cricketer and selector Mohinder Amarnath feels that it is the Indian captain’s ultra defensive approach that has seen him fare miserably as a captain overseas.
“Dhoni is a defensive captain who allows the opposition to make a comeback in the game. His record is good on home pitches — just like any other Indian captain. There is nothing special about it. We need aggressive captains, the likes of Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi — to win matches abroad,” said “Jimmy” Amarnath.
It must be mentioned here that under Captain Cool’s leadership, India has lost successive test series overseas, viz. the test series in England (0-4) in 2011 and Australia (0-4) in 2011-12. More recently, they lost both the Test series 0-1 in both South Africa and New Zealand It must be mentioned here that India lost an away Test match in the West Indies at Kingston in June 2011.
Amarnath was one of the earliest to call for Dhoni’s removal as captain a couple of years ago. He said he was surprised to see Dhoni employ the defensive tactics time and again.
“As a captain one is bound to try out new things. In Dhoni’s case, he seems to have stopped experimenting. As long as you win, people don’t ask questions. But once you start losing then a lot of questions are raised,” said Amarnath.
Mohinder had another problem with Dhoni batting so low down the order. He said, “A captain has to lead from the front. Not a single Test captain in the world bats at num- ber seven. What kind of example are you going to set by this act? I sincerely feel that this is high time to relieve him from Test captaincy and although he is a match winner in ODIs, India should look at an option in the shorter format as well.” Amarnath also lashed out at India coach Duncan Fletcher whose appointment, he thinks, hasn’t yielded desired results. “What is the point of having a coach who is not delivering? Everyone is talking about the players and the captain but nobody is raising questions about the coach and the support staff. I think the Indian team needs an Indian coach,” said Amarath. “A coach’s job is to help players to play to their potential and in the past we have achieved a lot with our own coaches,” the former selector said. It is not Mohinder alone who has lashed out at Dhoni. For- mer India captain Sourav Ganguly called Dhoni’s Test captaincy as obnoxious.
“His Test captaincy has been obnoxious. But changing captains now will unsettle the team. His place is not in doubt in Test cricket, but Dhoni needs to set the overseas record right,” said cricket’s Prince of Kolkata.
Rahul Dravid too points out that Dhoni’s captaincy is “too timid for Tests”.
“I think he (Dhoni) doesn’t trust his bowling attack as much as I think he should,” he said. “I saw that even in the Test match in Durban, he didn’t take the new ball till the 146th over. In fact, he was forced to take the new ball. He didn’t trust his fast bowlers to be able to take wickets. He kept playing with the older ball because he wanted to control the runs. So I think that is a slightly defensive mindset that he must discard,” said Dravid.