The MS Dhoni Predicament

Captain Cool: confident and daring, MSD has won matches for India with his calm nature and unorthodox styles of captaincy and batting.

The Midas touch is basically a term used for a quality possessed by a person who can turn a business venture into an extremely profitable one. Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni was said to have this Midas touch. But this being established; can be possessed by only one person. Cricket is a team sport. It is not possible for victory to be attributed to one single person.

There is no doubt that over the years Dhoni has changed. The long haired dare devil is very different from today’s Dhoni. No doubt Dhoni has a very large fan following but his captaincy skills have been under scrutiny ever since the whitewashed series against England. What was appealing about the Dhoni that won us the 2007 world T20 and many more series from then on was perhaps his don’t care attitude and unorthodox style of leadership and batting. That, coupled with his long hair and affinity for bikes gave him the aura of a rebel and set him apart from the other captains India had in the past. He did what he wanted to do irrespective of the norms and traditions and that benefited India immensely. There is no doubt that Indian cricket misses that Dhoni. He was criticized for many of his decisions, but most of the time those decisions won us matches. Now, those very decisions just don’t seem to be working out.

There were of course the not at all successful ventures in England and Australia. We started playing well towards the end of the tri-series with Sri Lanka and Australia but again just couldn’t make it to the Asia Cup finals though our performance was pretty average. In August came the New Zealand series where India did quite well. Then began the big event of the year, the World T20. The irony is that India won 4 out of 5 matches and still didn’t make the cut, whereas West Indies won the cup even though they won 2 out of 5 matches. Throughout Dhoni must be wondering what he’s doing wrong, why India just aren’t able to make it.

Question marks remain over whether Dhoni should still be India’s captain.

The inevitable question that arises is, is it time for Dhoni to give up his captaincy? As to who will be the next skipper is pretty obvious. There will be no objections from anybody. As a player Virat Kohli has proven himself in all forms of the game and as a person he has grown to be still expressive, but not aggressive. Kohli will be a great skipper, and India will be in great hands.

The idea now is to see what happens in the upcoming series. But what nobody realises is that these series are not only a great chance for us to have some fun with England and Australia, but also a chance to re establish ourselves as the number one team. As mentioned earlier it is not possible to single handedly win a team sport, but the captain plays a major role in shaping up the team’s performance. MSD is colloquially known as ‘Captain Cool’ dues to his calm composed nature on the field irrespective of the situation and that had helped in our matches, now it doesn’t seem to be making any difference. We need Dhoni in tip top shape as a player and as a skipper in order to win the upcoming series against some of the best teams in the world. And now, there just isn’t any guarantee of that. And in the matches that are coming up there is no room for experimentation. Dhoni needs to buck up. An end has to be put to this rut, to this dry spell the team has been having. Drastic changes have to be made in the team. But what about MS Dhoni?