The year 2015 did not go according to plan for Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Having retired from Test cricket at the end of 2014, he would have hoped for a less stressful and more fruitful year as captain of India in the shorter formats. Apart from a semi-final finish at the World Cup, which too was only a satisfactory result, India’s record under Dhoni’s captaincy made for sombre reading: a winless tri-series Down Under followed by series defeats to both Bangladesh and South Africa.
Add to these, the defeat in the final of the Indian Premier League and the subsequent suspension of the Chennai Super Kings – the IPL franchise Dhoni has led since its inception eight years ago and it is safe to say that the Midas touch deserted him last year. Furthermore, in the wake of Test skipper Virat Kohli’s popular gung-ho style of captaincy, the knives have begun to sharpen once again for the Ranchi-born wicketkeeper-batsman.
Key personnel ousted
At the root of Dhoni’s problems was the under-performance or absence of his core set of players. Ravindra Jadeja’s poor form saw him dropped after the Bangladesh series. Ravichandran Ashwin pulled up with a side strain during the first One Day International against South Africa and subsequently missed the remaining four matches.
Suresh Raina’s abysmal run of scores meant India practically played a batsman, and a finisher, short for quite some time. Mohammed Shami’s rehabilitation from surgery did not allow him to bowl even once after the World Cup. Ishant Sharma missed the mega event due to injury and played only one ODI last year. And Bhuvneshwar Kumar went from Dhoni’s go-to death bowler to a mere stand-in player.
For a skipper who likes to deal in constants, Dhoni had too many variables to contend with. He is generally averse to change and rarely comfortable in deviating from his preferred line-up. At the World Cup, for instance, Dhoni used only 12 players, the lowest by any captain, even though India qualified for the knockout stages with relative ease. With the likes of Barinder Sran, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Rishi Dhawan and Manish Pandey in the squad for Australia, Dhoni will face a challenge in giving these fresh faces a sustained run in the side – an aspect of his captaincy that has not particularly shone through in recent times.
The return of the trio
However, the tour of Australia will also offer him some much-needed respite. This comes in the form of the return of familiar faces, namely Ashwin, Jadeja and Ishant Sharma, to the ODI squad. Till a few days back, Shami too was a prominent part of this list but another unfortunate injury ended his tour prematurely.
It is in the return of spinners Ashwin and Jadeja, in particular, where Dhoni will find a great sense of comfort. Both had been missing from the ODI series defeat to the Proteas – one injured, the other dropped – leaving the skipper heavily short on resources. To further aggravate his pain, Dhoni then watched his Test successor, Kohli, reap the benefits of a fit-and-firing Ashwin-Jadeja duo. The pair accounted for 54 South African wickets between them at a combined average of less than 11.
While Axar Patel and Harbhajan Singh did a decent job in the ODIs, they did not quite possess the cleverness and camaraderie of Jadeja and Ashwin. Since October 2010, out of the 105 ODIs Dhoni has led India in, he has had both Jadeja and Ashwin at his disposal in 65 of them. Factor in a handful of Twenty20 Internationals and the IPL, where the duo have played together for CSK every season since 2012, and the skipper’s reliance on both of them becomes even more apparent.
Putting the squeeze
A bulk of India’s ODI victories under Dhoni have come by putting the squeeze on runs in the middle overs. Ashwin and Jadeja have frequently played a significant role in doing so. In ODI cricket, where the onus is on the batting side to score runs within a limited time frame, Dhoni and his comrades have mastered the art of keeping the opposition scoring in check. Bowling to shrewd field placements have stifled batsmen. Taking the pace off the ball has induced more errors. And spinners have deceptively run through the overs to create scoreboard pressure.
While Ashwin provides an almost professorial intelligence with the ball, Jadeja offers an uncomplicatedly cunning street-smart approach. He will get the job done, just don’t ask him how. Their left-right combo, and a penchant for variation, makes it harder for batsmen to set themselves. It is true that the Australian pitches are unlikely to offer them much assistance. However, tracks made for limited-overs games have becoming flatter across the globe. Uniformity in pitches means playing to your own strength counts for more than adaptability.
In the two warm-up matches against Western Australia XI last week, the frontline spinners were the most economical as well as the most lethal. All three – Jadeja, Ashwin and Patel – bowled at an economy rate of less than four in the 50-over game and less than five in the 20-over one. They also picked up 10 wickets in two matches, which was double the fast bowlers’ tally.
It provided a sign of things to come. With the repertoire of Ashwin and Jadeja at Dhoni’s disposal again, the middle overs of the Australian innings will go a long way in determining how well India can compete Down Under.
Akarsh Sharma is a Delhi-based writer who tweets here.
