Has Dhoni rediscovered his captaincy mojo or is it the calm before the storm !

If ever one wanted to know how fickle minded the Indian media can be, one doesn’t need to look at more than the ongoing Border Gavaskar Trophy between India and Australia. After a horrendous run of form over the past 18 months in Test match cricket, along with a series loss at home against England, MS Dhoni came into this series under a lot of pressure. Both his captaincy and his place in the team as a wicketkeeper were in question. A couple of emphatic wins against an inexperienced Australian side has turned the tables completely around for him, with former batting great Sunil Gavaskar suggesting he captains the team till 2019!!

A couple of months back, it was said Dhoni had lost his sheen, he looked jaded, he had become a defensive captain, and no one really noticed that the entire team was failing as a unit. The openers were not firing, the middle order looked out of sorts, bowlers albeit not their strongest point (but more than a handful in spinning conditions) looked inept at the international level, nothing seemed to be going right for team India.

Just two wins, and it all seems to be forgotten, Dhoni is back after coming back from a break is what is being portrayed in the media, he is aggressive, an active captain and no longer a reactive captain. Yes, some of it might be true, a break might have definitely helped his thought process, but didn’t anyone notice that he still kept his deep points and long off as soon as the Australians started attacking?  Even when India was doing well, this was the tactic used by Dhoni, keep the fielders in the deep, strangle the opposition scoring rate and pile on the pressure. The reason why it is working again is the fact that the batsmen are piling on the required big scores. Whether or not the Australian bowlers are good enough for Indian conditions, scoreboard pressure does matter, which was lacking for the past 18 months or so.

With the victory in the 2^nd test, Dhoni has become the most successful Indian captain of all time in Tests. Does it necessarily mean that he is India’s greatest captain ever? Statistically yes, and especially the fact that Ganguly’s record is inflated mainly due to 9 victories against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, Dhoni  is miles ahead of any other Indian Test captain. Some say, that Dhoni inherited Ganguly’s team which helped him achieve all the success he had in his initial years. Another way to look at it is, Ganguly had a group of highly talented individuals who were at the peak of their careers during his tenure. Either way, if Ganguly was the sort of character Indian cricket needed after the dark days of match fixing, Dhoni has been the ideal leader which was required for the transition from the generation of superstars to the next set of upcoming cricketers.

It really isn’t the time to hype up Dhoni once again. Yes, his achievements have been stupendous and are a reason for a celebration. But there are further challenges ahead. 2013 and 2014 sees India travelling to South Africa, New Zealand, England and Australia. How they perform there will be the real test. The selectors have shown they are willing to take hard decisions by dropping out of form senior members Sehwag and Gambhir. 2007 was the year Dhoni became the captain of the ODI Team, senior members Dravid and Ganguly were left out after playing one series under Dhoni. Probably Dhoni didn’t feel they would last till 2011 world cup or the selectors felt he would be more comfortable with younger players. What transpired after that was a golden period in Indian cricket. The test team now devoid of most of the older players and most of them not being mentally scarred by the defeats overseas could result in another glorious period for India. Only time will tell. 

It's Time to Change

It would be an understatement if one said India had a poor 2012. It was a year in which not only the cricket team plunged to the bottom, the country as a whole faced crisis after crisis. It is interesting that the current state of affairs in India match that of the cricket team.

Similar to the Indian politicians and religious leaders who have been making some really lame excuses for the incidents in Delhi, and rather than finding the right solution to stop the menace, have been coldly putting the blame on the women of the country - the Indian board and players rather than accepting the reality, have tried to justify their poor performances due to player injuries, unfair pitch conditions, etc.

In India, we have a tendency to put the blame on the others without analyzing ourselves. Yes corruption is rampant in the country, but before making judgments about others, shouldn’t we put ourselves in their shoes. I am not saying what they are doing is right, but corruption in India really starts from a very young age. Even college students, at the first sight of embezzling funds from the authorities for various college activities do their best to trick them by submitting doctored/tampered bills. The only difference is that the students deal in thousands whereas the politicians deal in lakhs. It isn’t the ideal situation, but it is where the seeds are planted.

Similarly, the Indian team rather than introspecting to identify what they have been doing wrong, resorted to sharing excuses with the hope that all will return to normalcy. But as it generally happens, if one is complacent and over-confident, things don’t go as per plan.

It is time for India as a nation to move on, face the ground reality and try to find solutions than just running away from the problems, hoping it gets solved by itself. Just like how the cold wave has gripped north India, a dark cloud has risen over India and has brought darkness and despair.

A new year has dawned upon us, and what better occasion to start afresh. The tradition has been to make a New Year resolution, but generally people following it has been an aberration. Let us all try together to make India a better place to live in by being accountable for our deeds and focus on offering constructive criticism and providing solutions.

Blame it on Dhoni

Poor Dhoni what can you do to stop this horrendous run of losses for Team India. No matter how poorly the other 10 players on the field perform, the fault lies on you. Yes, you hit the nail on its head when you mentioned that you have become the new punching bag of Team India. Sachin coped it for the last two decades, now it is your turn!

On a damp wicket, with a lot of assistance for the faster bowlers, it was always going to be hard batting first. The need of the hour was to see off the new ball and then capitalize towards the end. Like we have been seeing in the test matches for the past year or so, none of the top order batsmen showed any sort of application to play the swinging ball. It is high time, the selectors consider replacing the under performing openers. Does Sehwag really command a place in the ODI team? He has been in poor form in this format for sometime, and to add to it, he is a liability on the field. Already the team is short of quality bowlers, and every run saved on the field will be a big bonus. In the end, Dhoni played one of the finest innings in ODIs saved India from the blushes. All this from a man who doesn’t have the technique to play on tracks conducive for fast bowling. He may not posses the best of techniques, but whatever said or done, he has found a way to cope with it. The fact that he is one of the few Indians who can play the pull shot definitely helps!

With the new ODI rules making it mandatory to have five fielders inside the 30 yard circle, it is important that India choose their 5^th bowler wisely. Dhoni has received a lot of flak for going with only four specialists bowlers. Even during the world cup campaign India went in with four bowlers. Batting has always been their strength, and looking at the current crop of bowlers, India’s batting unit will always be stronger than the bowling unit. You can’t blame the bowlers for a poor performance from the batters. The fact that it was stretched to the 49^th over shows how well they tried. Dhoni prefers packing the side with 7 batsmen, so that however poor the bowlers bowl, he will have the firepower in the batting to cover it up. Even if the team wants a 5^th bowler, who are the options? If Jadeja is selected, all will conjure up Dhoni’s love for CSK players! Finding four good bowlers itself has been a major issue over the years for India, and I don’t see how we can find a decent 5^th bowler anytime soon. Other than Ashwin, there is no bowler in the top 30 ODI rankings. The fact that Jadeja is the second highest ranked bowler for India tells you the story. A fully fit Irfan Pathan might solve the problem. Irfan and Ashwin do seem to be good enough to bat at positions 7 and 8. More importantly it will give Dhoni the chance to bat atleast one position higher. With the kind of bowlers India has currently, it is really harsh on blaming Dhoni for his defensive tactics. When Warne and Mcgrath retired, we saw how Ricky Ponting struggled, with his new bowlers. The fact that India did reasonably well during the period 2007-2011 is a testament of how well Dhoni handled his limited resources.

During the India England Test series, the focus was on Sachin’s batting and Dhoni’s captaincy due to which Sehwag and Gambhir got away despite their insipid performances. Sehwag has been underperforming in ODIs for sometime now, and probably it is time to look ahead and give Rahane a chance. If the top order doesn’t get fixed soon, Dhoni will experience what Sachin has endured throughout his career.

Dhoni’s captaincy over the years has been pretty much the same; it is just that now he’s having too many players in the team solely on their past reputations. During such turbulent times it is necessary that the captain inspires the team. He tried his best in the last ODI, running quick singles and two’s despite the fact that he was totally drained out by the end due to the sapping heat of Chennai and trying to give the bowlers some sort of a chance. Compare this to Gambhir, who was more interested in staying not out rather than farming the strike in Mumbai. It may not have made any difference in the result, but it sends down the wrong message. Maybe the right way is to give some of the senior players aspiring for captaincy a kick on their backside and give chance to players with greater zeal and enthusiasm. Dhoni has become everyone’s favourite punching bag; I hope in the new year, he’s the one punching.

The Fallen Warrior...?

Other than during the dark days of match fixing, there probably has never been harder times in Indian cricket than what they are currently facing. A side in transition after the retirement of two legends of cricket is never going to be easy, and as the results have shown, it hasn't gone too smoothly for India.

Against top teams, India have sunk to depths never seen before. Even during the 90s when India were poor travellers they were a force to consider at home. In the previous decade, they did well to remove the tag of tigers at home and lambs overseas, but recent results have erased out all the hardwork done.

When the team is not doing well, there will always be loud talk about who must be dropped and who must be selected. Though it is necessary to bring in changes considering the results in the past one year, change for the sake of changing is never a good option. India must realize, the side is going through a period where there will be instability as it won't be easy to replace Dravid, Laxman and in the near future Tendulkar. Chopping and changing players regularly will not help. It is very important that the youngsters coming in are given a fair chance. We have to realize that in order to become as good as some of the greats, they have to be given opportunites to fail and learn from their experiences. Laxman was pushed up and down the order initially but he was persisted with. Had he been dropped after some of the initial failures he had, world cricket would not be able to cherish such a charismatic stroke player!

One of the things which has come out very strongly during this debacle, is MS Dhoni's place in the test team being questioned. I find it quite bizzare that, when the entire top 6 is going through a bad patch, why question the number seven batsman only? Yes Dhoni hasn't been amongst the runs lately, but the replacement captain who the former chairman of selectors Mohinder Amarnath is considering hasn't been amongst the runs for the past three years!

Table Showing Runs scored by Dhoni and remaining other wicket keepers in Test Matches during the last 20 years

	Innings	Runs	Average	50s/100s
MS Dhoni	114	3784	37.46	27/05
Other Indian Keepers(From 1992-2012)	178	3530	22.7	15/3

As we can see from the above stat how well Dhoni has done in comparison to other Indian keepers over the past 20 years. One of the points raised against Dhoni in Test matches is that he hasn't played match winning knocks like how Gilchrist did for Australia. But looking at the stats of wicketkeepers over the past decade (minimum runs scored as 1000), Dhoni has not only scored the maximum number of runs over this period, he is the third highest averaged batsman during the period. Dhoni hasn't played a single big defining knock in Tests, but he has played a lot of decisive 50s during the period. Unfortunately in India we are satisfied only if a batsman hits a 100.

Table Showing Highest averages by wicket keepers in Test matches during the period Dec-2002 to Dec 2012 (minimum 1000 runs scored)

Player	Matches	Inns	Runs	HS	Ave
MJ Prior(Eng)	61	91	3269	131*	43.01
AC Gilchrist (Aus)	59	85	3136	162	41.81
MS Dhoni (India)	72	114	3784	148	37.46
BJ Haddin (Aus)	43	71	2257	169	35.82
KC Sangakkara (SL)	25	44	1510	185	35.11

When it comes to runs scored in victories, Dhoni is only behind Gilchrist during this period. It is no coincidence that India's best period came when Dhoni the batsman was contributing. With the rate at which he scores, he often gave the bowlers a few extra overs to get the opposition out.

Ideally, a 8-0 loss is good enough to end a captaincy career. But given the amount of success Dhoni had prior, it was natural that he was given a chance to redeem himself. Unfrotunately for the selectors, the senior members next in line Gambhir and Sehwag are woefully out of form themselves. The only way out here is to give Dhoni a chance to bring back the lost glory or give a young player an opportunity to rebuild the side in a similar way Grame Smith was trusted upon the captaincy at a very young age, thereby relieving Dhoni of the burden from captaincy and let him concentrate on contributing as a player.

Dropping Dhoni from the team at this stage would be a complete blunder. He has set the standards so high himself, that we expect another player to ease into his place easily. For all his contributions to Indian cricket, he deserves to be given a chance to make a strong come back. You never know the value of what you have till you loose it. Growth for the sake of growth is the philosophy of a cancer cell.

The Thrills and Frills of Home

With all the hype surrounding the India-England series and the Indian media portraying the series as a grudge series, it is disappointing that the talk of the town has been about the nature of the pitches rather than about some engrossing cricket which has been played over the last two weeks.

A lot of talk has taken place about the extent of home advantage a team must have. I believe that’s where the beauty of test cricket lies, the different challenges one has to face when travelling to different countries is what makes cricket a very unique and intriguing sport. There have been times when spinning tracks have been ruled as unsporting and I find that pretty absurd since a green top is considered as a fair wicket. A track which turns from day one can be considered as unsporting only when the result of the game is highly dependent on the toss. A track can be considered as sporting when it favours both batsmen and bowlers equally. It has almost become a norm these days that if a bowler’s track is laid out, it is considered as a bad track, but on the other hand if it is a batsman’s paradise, no one seems to make a fuss about it.  That’s where I feel Dhoni’s unyielding request for tracks which have turn and bounce right from day one is a wonderful step in order to change the state of wickets which are prepared in India. For most part of the last decade, there have been way too many flat tracks which have been prepared leading to high scoring draws. As we saw in Mumbai, the toss was taken out of the equation, the spinners got turn and bounce from day one, fast bowlers found carry as good as one can get in India, Pietersen and Cook showed there was good value for your shots once you get in. Yes the creation of a supposedly tailor made track for India backfired, but we were able to witness some wonderful cricket, with the pitch not too inclined to support one facet of the game.

It has become a major talking point, whether India’s strategy of preparing pitches to suit their team is moral or not. Though I see no problem in having pitches suited to the home team’s strength, it is the Indian team and media’s attitude with which I am quite perplexed. The word which has been floating around has been about Australia and England preparing green tops to suit their fast bowlers, so why should India not prepare tracks to suit their spinners. The pitches during India’s tours to England and Australia where nowhere close to green tops. The only reason we lost is simple. We were outplayed in all the three departments! How else can one explain that when Australia and England used to pile up big scores, India could barely cross 250 in almost all of their innings? It wasn’t as though the pitch was green when India batted and became flat when they bowled!

There lies part of the bigger problem for India. With the retirement of stalwarts Dravid and Laxman, and Sachin’s colossal career coming to an end it is necessary they identify and back a group of batsmen who have the skills to play in all sorts of conditions. We need to give priority to performers in first class cricket -as of now we have lot of cricketers who are coming in through performances in the limited overs cricket. They can thrill but unfortunately it’s all frill! During the period between 2002 and 2007 when India did reasonably well overseas a lot credit was given to the remarkable performances of batsmen. But the most crucial element was the performance of Kumble during that period. He was the leading wicket taker overseas in the world during that period. Remarkable for a man who was considered only good for home conditions. How MS Dhoni must be wishing he had one such bowler who could perform such a similar role for him.

It is disappointing to see the team and BCCI not admitting that they performed extremely poorly during their last two tours. Results don’t matter but it is what you learn from the experiences is what Dhoni has been emphasizing on. But if you don’t acknowledge your mistakes, it is pretty hard to improve from there on. Only a couple of test wins more and Dhoni will become the most successful Indian captain ever in terms of wins registered. With the team in a transition period, and results not going his way, he is going through the most difficult phase of his career. How he performs from here, will define his legacy.

Suresh Raina and the Test Conundrum

Ever since the retirement of Sourav Ganguly from test matches in late 2008, India have been looking for a reliable replacement for him. Four years have passed but India still haven’t got a player who has sealed the spot. Now with the retirements of Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman, the numbers of vacant spots have increased. There are a lot of contenders for the 3 spots mainly Virat Kohli, Pujara, Rohit Sharma, Badrinath, Tiwary and Suresh Raina. Raina’s case is the most interesting. He has been around in the one day squad for around 5 years now and has become a very valuable player in the ODI team. It was natural that the selectors gave him an opportunity in Test matches after Yuvraj Singh couldn’t come up with consistent performances. Raina made a spectacular start to his Test career with a 100 on debut and a counter attacking 41 in a difficult chase in his 2nd test. It looked as though India finally found someone who could fill in the number 6 spot in the Test side. That’s when all the problems began for him. Bowlers around the world realized his weakness for short pitched bowling and heavily exposed him. He hasn’t found a way yet to counter such type of bowling which has resulted in his extremely poor performances in Tests.

A bouncer when in whites, Suresh Raina lands in all sorts of trouble

One of the things I have noticed with Raina is that he struggles a lot against short pitch bowling more in Tests than the limited overs. Agreed that in tests, since there is no limit on number of overs per bowler, he will be tested for a longer time and with attacking fields set, a slight miscalculation can result him in becoming out. It has got him in a state where he has been expecting a short ball every time a fast bowler comes on to bowl. As a result, it generally isn’t the short ball which gets him out, but the balls pitched on a good length area which gets him in trouble as he is waiting on the backfoot. A classic example was during the 1st test in Centurion during India’s tour to South Africa in late 2010, Kallis kept catching Raina neither forward or backwards, and eventually Raina just ended up guiding the ball to the slip cordon! But what I have observed is that in the limited overs, if there is a short ball he either ducks it or just smashes it out of the park, whereas in Tests he really gets confused. When he decides to pull, he is not really sure whether to keep it down or just smash it out of the ground, which more or less results in him ending up in awkward positions. With the amount of limited overs cricket India have been playing recently (including IPL), one gets the feeling that Raina hasn’t really had much time to work out his flaws in the longer format of the game. With a packed schedule he hasn’t been able to go back to the domestic scene and play few first class games to iron out the chinks in his batting technique.

When in the blues, a short ball is heading only in one direction

A quick glance at the Future Tours Program (FTP) as listed by the ICC (FTP Calender), we can see that India aren’t slotted to play any games during the months April to September 2013. Obviously the Indian Premier League (IPL) will take place in April and May, but I feel a county season for Raina will do a world of good for him. It will not only help him improve his batting skills, but also give him an exposure to a better set of fast bowlers in conditions which aren’t really conducive to batting.

Temperament at the highest level has never been an issue with Raina, he has helped India win in a number of games from tight situations. It’s just more of an adaptation to the longer format which he needs to get used to, which can be done by only playing more and more first class games.

Let us hope that he sorts out his issues soon and start entertaining us in the longest format of the game too!

UDRS (Umpire Decision Review System) Yes or No !

The big thing circling around in the cricket world these days is whether the DRS i.e. the Decision Review System (or Dravid Removal System as some of the Indian fans call it) should be made compulsory for all cricket matches or not. First things first, whatever the ICC decides, it must be uniform and must be applied to all the matches. It’s just ridiculous that you have one series played with DRS and another without DRS. Mind you even the series which play with the DRS rules implemented are applied in different forms. Some have Hawkeye as one of the judging criteria some have only Hotspot! It’s really bizarre and silly that you have a game which is being played with different rules in different continents.

Many feel that BCCI is being the main detractor of the DRS because of the teams failing to use the DRS effectively (as well as the controversies which occurred in England mainly with Dravid’s dismissals). Since nowadays most administrators are more concerned more about the commercial aspects rather than the game itself, the first thing they must look into is how will the smaller boards like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka be able to bear the costs for the equipment’s required for the DRS. The more powerful boards such as BCCI, ECB or CA have enough funds to cover the costs or have a large enough market to find a sponsor. The first thing the ICC has to do is if the DRS has to be implemented either they find a common sponsor for all the matches being played (the payment varying depending on the intensity of the series) or the ICC themselves sponsor the same.

Now coming to the point of the DRS. The first thing the ICC should clarify to everyone is the system they are trying to implement is not going to be 100% but a system which can remove the howlers away. The BCCI has to stop being adamant in saying that the two umpires on the field alone can do the job. Yes they can improve their standards, but with growing technology it would obviously be better if they are assisted. I would really like asking N Srinivasan what if India were to face the Sydney fiasco once again. Will they threaten to boycott the series once more?

Sanjay Manjrekar has been saying avoid the DRS and no need to talk about it, the series will be played without any controversy. Luckily for him after India’s tour of England, India never faced any major umpiring mistakes. What about the low profile series like Pakistan vs Sri Lanka? Pakistan were on the wrong side around 10 times!! Many of them were howlers which could have been easily overturned.

Hotspot was considered to 100% foolproof before the India England series happened. It is dependent on the weather conditions and hence until that condition is eradicated it cannot be used as a judging criterion for all the decisions. Hawkeye too has its flaws which is easily demonstrated by Phil Hughes dismissal in Sri Lanka which was later explained to be due to the difference in frame rates between the cameras used in Sri Lanka and those in England. Forget about uniformity in using DRS all around the world, there has to be uniformity in the equipment’s being used as well to allow DRS to be a successful venture.

As Harsha Bhogle recently pointed out in his article if you give the number of decisions to be made by the players, then as a batsman you are giving priority only to the top 1-7 usually to help themselves escape a wrong decision. What if your tail ender is winning you a match with the bat and then gets a wrong decision? He may not get the chance to review it!

My suggestion is to give the decision of the review in the hands of the umpire. He can use it when he feels there is a doubt and use the help of the television replays to make the correct decision. No need of the hotspot, just use the replays to check if a there was a genuine edge or not. Use hawkeye just to see where the ball has pitched and see that the impact of the ball on pad is within the line of the stumps. The third umpire shouldn’t take more than a minute to make his decision and if the replays are inconclusive till then, he should make his own decision. If a third umpire can’t make a decision in one minute after many replays it definitely can’t be any worse than what an onfield umpire will do. Yes this is not the most perfect system, it may cast more doubts on the umpires mind, yes the players may feel cheated that one decision is reviewed but a similar case isn’t but they should man up and not complain as after all cricket is a gentleman’s game ! , but what it can do is remove the howlers. It can help cricket avoid another Sydney fiasco.