Time for MS Dhoni to re-invent his captaincy

MS Dhoni talks to India players during the 2015 World Cup

“I think we have reached a point where we need to decide whether we want to go with quick bowlers or with bowlers who are not really quick but bowl good line and length and force the batsman to commit mistakes, as the quicker bowlers are not giving the performance that is really needed”, said Dhoni at the presentation ceremony after the third one-day match at Mirpur.

This statement clearly tells us that Dhoni doesn’t have faith in his fast bowlers. We have also seen that Dhoni doesn’t talk to his bowlers often, and he sets the field according to the line and length of the bowler. A rapport between the bowler and the captain and wicket keeper would be the ideal ploy in such a situation though.

An ideal example would be Umesh Yadav in the third one-day match at Mirpur, where he wasn’t given a continuous spell, as he was too erratic with his line and length. Dhoni also didn’t talk to Umesh about the length he was expecting from Yadav, but what Dhoni did was that he set negative fields to him to ensure he doesn’t go for too many runs.

When the captain doesn’t have confidence in his bowler, it will be difficult for the bowler to lift his own spirit when he is not having a good day in office. Dhoni could think a little more about having a word with his bowlers and lifting their spirit.

The style of captaincy that suited Dhoni

Dhoni’s greatest strength as captain has been his ability to make brave decisions on the field, and reacting quickly to the situation. The reason why Dhoni was successful in the initial part of his captaincy was the trust he had in his bowlers. He had the likes of Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Munaf Patel and Sreesanth as fast bowlers, and he reacted by standing by his bowlers and giving them another opportunity to deliver.

An ideal example would be the way he used Sreesanth in the 2007 T20 World Cup final against Pakistan. Pakistan were set a target of 158 runs to win the final, and for India, RP Singh bowled a good first over to Kamran Akmal. However, Imran Nazir hammered Sreesanth in the next over for 21 runs, and at that point of time, most expected Dhoni to take Sreesanth out of the attack. But Dhoni stuck with Sreesanth in the next over, and in turn, Sreesanth delivered a maiden over bowling to Younus Khan.

After the 2011 World Cup, Dhoni the captain started to adopt a safety approach, he wasn’t able to produce results on a consistent basis and as a consequence, India’s overseas record suffered badly in the last four years.

It’s time for Dhoni to re-invent his old style of captaincy, and take some bold decisions. He can’t afford to play with medium pacers on flat batting surfaces in India as they will be taken for runs quite easily. Umesh Yadav’s extra pace will prove to be handy on flat pitches, and so it is imperative that Dhoni shows complete trust in Umesh.

Another aspect where Dhoni will have to improve is in backing the right talents and assessing where they go wrong. Bhuvneshwar Kumar had a pretty average series in Bangladesh, but it was not a clever decision to rule him out.

Dhoni has not assured of playing the 2019 World Cup, but if India are to raise their standard in next 7 months, MS Dhoni will have to re-invent his old style of captaincy and take brave decisions.