Time for MS Dhoni to decide about his future as captain

Is time running out for Dhoni as ODI skipper?

There’s no direct assessment of the Indian cricket team’s performance after their humiliating defeat in the fifth one-dayer on Sunday and thereby losing their first bilateral ODI series at home to South Africa. It’s not the Indian batting that has let them down, but it’s the defensive approach throughout the series has been the major downfall for India. Dhoni’s captaincy was pretty average throughout the entire series, which allowed South Africa to win critical moments of the game.

Throughout the entire series, Dhoni had his own set of plans which were quite rigid. His plans were to use four overs of the fast bowlers in their first spell, and another couple of overs from them in the middle overs, and in between, unleash the spin web around the opponents. Although this tactic worked for Dhoni to some extent, it was also the reason why India lost the matches at Rajkot & Kanpur.

When Ashwin scalped the wicket of De Kock in his first over at Kanpur, he straightaway took him off the attack in the next over and operated Stuart Binny and Suresh Raina in the middle overs. When he had a great opportunity to put pressure on South Africa by taking wickets, the usage of part-timers to the new batsman, who was not settled, was a strange move from Dhoni.

Also, Dhoni never tried to play with the weaknesses of the opposition batsmen. He had his own set of plans and was never flexible with his bowling changes and field placements. With De Kock clearly looking vulnerable against off-spinners, he never attempted to open the bowling with Harbhajan Singh or even tried to bring him as early as possible in the first Power Play.

Even when the pacers were going for plenty of runs in the first ten overs, Dhoni didn’t try to open with spinners in the first ten overs and thereby allowed the Proteas to lay a solid foundation. These instances clearly raise a question on Dhoni’s captaincy for the future. Does he as a leader still have something to contribute? Is Dhoni not willing to take risks to win matches? Why is he sidelining quick bowlers? What actually went wrong in this series for India?

Dhoni has become a defensive captain

To start off with, every captain has a shelf-life, and there are specific reasons for that. As you lead your side for many years, your tactics will become predictable and if a captain has experienced some embarrassing failures in his long career, he would be cautious in his decision-making in the future.

That’s exactly what has happened with Dhoni as post the humiliation in England and Australia that he suffered in 2011-12, he became a defensive captain. Until then, he was willing to take risks to win matches, accepted the defeats gracefully, and never blamed his players for defeats.

However, in the recent past, we have seen a cautious Dhoni, who is not ready to take risks. The older Dhoni would have definitely given Ashwin a long first spell at Kanpur, and the old Dhoni would have certainly played to batsman’s weakness.

The old Dhoni would not have given these kinds of statements – “South Africa batted when the wicket was at its best, and the dew factor was not there to help us out”. These type of statements clearly shows that he is frustrated with the results, and therefore, is not prepared to take risks in creating a winning combination.

Failure to back / try out new players

Umesh Yadav seems to be struggling under Dhoni while at the same time thriving under Kohli

Also, apart from the tactical part of the game, he has not been backing genuine raw talented players in the side. He is not ready to risk Umesh Yadav for Mohit Sharma and is not ready to look for a new seam bowling all-rounder in the form of Rishi Dhawan. He is also not ready to look for a proper middle order batsman in the form of Manish Pandey, who has the capability to rotate strike, and at the same time, is capable of being destructive towards the end.

What does this say about Dhoni the captain for future? With Virat Kohli looking for raw pace bowlers, and Dhoni not being a big fan of raw pace, it is important that Dhoni takes a call about his future as captain before the limited-overs season resumes in January. Also, with Virat looking for variety in the bowling attack, and Dhoni preferring just to stick with line and length bowlers, the fast bowlers would certainly not get the comfort level under Dhoni than to what they get under Kohli.

An ideal example would be Umesh Yadav, who had a good Test series in Sri Lanka but feels low on confidence when playing in one-dayers. The reason behind that is Dhoni has not stood by him and was often too critical of Umesh’s performance openly.

This is the scenario where a captain can have a huge impact on a players’ confidence. When Wasim Akram used to go for plenty of runs in trying to bowl quick, Imran Khan stood by his pacer and told the media that “I want Wasim to bowl quick and bowl fast”. This statement just gave Akram the much-needed confidence, and thereafter, he became a world-class bowler.

It is imperative that Dhoni changes his way of approach in the one-dayers. If he is not looking to be flexible in his tactics, and not looking to take a few risks, then probably his time as a captain has come to an end!

It is going to be a tough decision, but the sooner he decides, the better it is for the new captain as he will have ample time to build a team for the next major tournament.