MS Dhoni: Would putting all the blame on the Indain captain solve India's ailments?

MS Dhoni

In the post-match presentation at The Oval after the 5th Test defeat to England, MS Dhoni wore a quiet, weary look as he tried to negotiate Michael Atherton’s questions with customary equanimity and cricketing logic. Somewhere, though, one felt he’d lost his credibility, harping on the same old things: failure of the batting order, youngsters with not much experience, not enough runs in the first innings.

That gutsy quality was still there, unflinching in the face of reality, victory and defeat alike. But that air of respect surrounding him seemed punctured somewhat, his words falling on sceptical ears. Not the words of the most successful captain of India, nor the captain with the most embellished trophy cabinet in the country, but a man who just can never win anything abroad.

The call for Dhoni’s sacking grows louder

As the noise regarding his removal from Test captaincy gains a crescendo, it’s good to take a step back and think of what we’re hurting from. It might actually be a very good time for Dhoni to step down from Test captaincy, but is it really fair to level all the criticism to him? The moment the series got over and we’d ended up with yet another crushing series defeat, all the self-appointed critics and pundits across the country started talking about the millions of loopholes that apparently existed within his tactics. Everything was dragged out to the open and lambasted – his decision to play 5 bowlers, his decision to not play 5 bowlers and play 7 batsmen, his decision to play Stuart Binny, his decision to replace Shikhar Dhawan with Gautam Gambhir, his conservative mindset, and what not!

Switch over to his better moments – the T20 WC victory in 2007, the tri-series in Australia, the 2011 World Cup victory, the 2013 Champions Trophy victory, the moment when India reached World No. 1 in Test rankings. The decision to bowl Joginder Sharma in the last over in Johannesburg, the decision to play a young team sans many of the seniors for the 2008 tri-series in Australia, the decision to promote himself up the order in the World Cup final in place of an inform Yuvraj Singh, the dramatic 7-2 field setting in the Mohali Test vs Australia in 2008, the decision to bowl Ishant Sharma in the fag end of the Champions Trophy 2013.

All of these were decisions like the ones that are now being criticised. Bold, unconventional, looking like a gamble from the outside but carefully calculated by a uniquely singular cricket-brain. The difference is – they resulted in victories, the other set in defeat. One was lauded. The other castigated.

But that for you is MS Dhoni! His cricket brain operates in an off-beat manner. All his decisions aren’t “roobish” (to use Geoffrey Boycott’s favourite adjective). Sometimes they’re masterstrokes that deliver miracles! Is it solely because of him that Indians have plummeted to such dregs?

Good start to the series

Let’s take a close look at the series that just got over. The Indians started in a solid fashion. The batting was looking good at Trent Bridge. They even had England down to 298-9 at one stage. And from there they went on to score 496 runs, in the process taking a 39 run lead. A last wicket partnership of 198 runs, and it’s not the first time this team has suffered assaults from the lower order batsmen.

Then came the Lord’s Test. Indian batting still holds quite good. In the final innings, the English batsmen self-destructed against Ishant Sharma’s short-pitched bowling. The scoreline showed 1-0, which was the same as England’s scoreline against Sri Lanka in the previous series. One or two ailments were starting to show (like the drops in the slips) but still so far so good. Horror memories of James Anderson going down on his knees almost on the verge of tears at Leeds start to flood through for England. And then, things dramatically started turning round for them. The English batsmen found form, Anderson was roaring again, Moeen Ali was blowing away famed line-ups, Alastair Cook looked like a smart leader, the jaded Matt Prior was replaced by a young, energetic keeper-batsman and even Chris Jordan and Chris Woakes were making merry with the ball!

And for India, it was from one nightmare to a worse nightmare. The fans prayed frenetically for not another relapse of the brutal memories of the twin whitewashes of 2011. But the end-result altered precious little. At the end of the series, you felt the dark days of the late 80s and 90s were back again when Indian teams were laughing stocks overseas. Where Test defeats flooded down in alarming torrents. It was as if a Sourav Ganguly, a Rahul Dravid and an Anil Kumble never happened in between! The post-mortem analysis shows the causes to be two-fold. And certainly not something we can dump on the shoulders of Dhoni alone.

Basic mistakes

At a temporal level, one has to think of the dropped catches. It’s one of the everlasting truths of cricket that – catches win you matches. We saw everyone dropping catches in the slips in this series –Jadeja, Pujara, Kohli, Vijay. At some point it was bound to have an effect! There’s no Dale Steyn or James Anderson or Ryan Harris in the team and when the nicks are generated they have to be pouched. This gives confidence to the bowlers, and the disastrous effort on the field served to not only break the rhythm and momentum of the bowlers but it also had an impact on the confidence of the entire team. Specially the missed catch of Alastair Cook by Jadeja in the 3rd Test had a telling impact in the series.

Not only were our slip fielders dropping everything they even seemed reluctant to come forward. Instead, they looked happy to just hang back and let the odd ball look like it dropped short. This factor certainly played a major role in turning the series from good to atrocious. Again the Indian bowlers went through long periods without looking even close to getting a wicket. Once the English batsmen started putting runs on the board, the confidence was back with their bowlers and the pressure shifted to the Indian batsmen.

At a broader level, we need to go back to the series in South Africa in the December of last year. Most people will agree that was the first game played by the new generation Indian cricketers. We were on the cusp of victory at Johannesburg, yet we failed to force the issue. In the second Test at Durban, we had to bat through the final day with 8 wickets in hand. The batsman had performed well the entire series. The confidence was good. Yet we managed to find a way to give away wickets and lose the Test.

In the series versus New Zealand, we lost the 1st Test by a meagre margin of 40 runs. In the 2nd Test, we had New Zealand down at 250 odd for 5 with a 6-run lead in the 2nd innings and 2 whole days to go. We managed to let Brendon McCullum complete his first triple century in Test cricket and somehow scramble to a tame draw. What do these patterns show us about this team? Is it as simple as poor captaincy and a failure of the batting order?

More problems than just Dhoni’s captaincy

Rather, it’s a much broader problem. We didn’t win the matches that most teams would’ve easily closed out. We lacked fighting mentality when it mattered the most – the surrender of the batsmen in the Durban Test after playing well the entire series and narrowly falling short in Auckland. Our bowlers inexplicably often go long spells of time without looking like ever bowling a wicket-taking ball, our fielders drop dollies to throw away momentum. So does it show that our batsmen lack the skill to play Test cricket, or that it’s all the fault of the captain?

And what of the BCCI? Do they care at all about Indian cricket? Let alone what the advent of the uncountable millions of IPL money has done to the mentality of the youngsters, look at the way they structure tours and fix coaching personnel. Is there a plan at all and as fans do we have any right to expect any explanations from the BCCI?

It won’t be too far-fetched to say that tournaments like IPL and the millions of limited overs matches these cricketers play are making an impact in their mentality. Clearly it’s not the skill of the batsmen that’s an issue. Rather, it’s the thought of all the players that’s dangerous. It doesn’t seem like a defeat matters much to them.

If anything, there was relief on the faces of the players after their ordeal was over at The Oval. We need to introspect on how all these things can be expected to be overturned simply by blaming and changing the captain. It might be better to ask Dhoni to take an immediate break from cricket and think about his future. After all, he must be a really tired man with the incredible workload that’s been planted on his shoulders for years. Also, the selectors should look to the future and take steps. But making a scapegoat of one man would be forgetting all the faulty little parts that infest Indian cricket today.

Finally, if we don’t pull up our socks right now we’re in for a horrendous show in the 2015 World Cup as well. At this rate, it seems hardly avoidable!