During one of his most trying periods, controversial English cricketer Kevin Pietersen said: “It’s tough being me”. Despite his reputation for being inscrutable, India’s limited-overs captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni could well be harbouring similar thoughts.
Being Dhoni must certainly be tough. It’s only been two-and-a-half years since he led the team to victory in the prestigious ICC Champions Trophy. Even so, not a series goes by without questions being raised about his captaincy. The losing run goes on: after series defeats against Bangladesh and South Africa last year, 2016 has started off with a crushing loss in Australia. Dhoni’s decision to retire from Tests in late 2014 was supposed to lighten the load, but the move ironically seems to have done him more harm than good.
Indecisive and muddled
In Tests, Virat Kohli’s bold new captaincy has invigorated a struggling side and has also provided a sharp contrast to India’s travails in coloured clothing. Incredibly, for a team that faced whitewash after whitewash till 2014, the Indian Test side suddenly has a settled look about it. On the other hand, after the great success of the limited-overs team in the same period, everything now looks muddled – there are accusations of rifts internal rifts, the batting order remains undecided and the team selection looks confused.
Central to this strife has been MS Dhoni and his captaincy in the shorter formats. After the shock loss in Bangladesh last year, a piece on this website asked whether the defeats had seemed to stop affecting Captain Cool. Dhoni has since captained the Indian team to two consecutive series losses. And if India do not do something drastically different in the two remaining matches in Australia, they could well end up on the wrong side of a 5-0 whitewash.
During his heady winning streaks, Dhoni’s convoluted answers to difficult questions, delivered with his usual impassive face, could be explained with humour. But as the losses keep piling up, his mannerisms increasingly appear as tactics to dodge difficult questions.
After the Bangladesh series, Dhoni gave a sarcastic rejoinder to a query about captaincy. After the loss in the third ODI against Australia on Sunday in Melbourne, he dismissed a similar question by making light about it. “[A] PIL [is] needed to review my captaincy,” he quipped.
No culpability?
It appears that this light-hearted approach is only applicable to the captain. He misses no opportunity to admonish the batsmen or the bowlers and does not shy away from singling out players for criticism. But when it comes to talking about himself or his captaincy, he prefers to beat around the bush. He more or less spelled it out when after the Melbourne loss when he said, “It’s not about the captain… more important to look at areas to improve.”
True, but isn’t captaincy also one of those areas to improve? During his reign at the top, Dhoni was the type of street-smart captain that confounded opposition teams. Whether it was bowling Joginder Sharma in the last over of the 2007 World Twenty20 final or pushing himself up the order in the 2011 World Cup final, he had tricks up his sleeve that no one could anticipate that would invariably result in triumph.
As a wicketkeeper, Dhoni is still a smart customer. But as captain, he looks increasingly out of ideas and tactics. By now, every opposition team is aware of India’s strengths and weaknesses. Dhoni probably knows them too, but as the last three ODIs against Australia proved, there has absolutely been no change in what India have been doing. There have been a few selection tweaks here and there, but nothing to suggest any sort of tactical nous. It is almost as if Dhoni has thrown up his hands and decided that this is how it is and nothing can or will be changed.
This gives rise to another important question – has Dhoni just lost the zeal? Has he lost the zest to win, to pull off those incredible heists, that victory out of nowhere? It can happen to anyone, especially someone like Dhoni who has been ever-present in all levels of cricket since he made his international debut more than a decade ago. But if it is true, it will be a bitter pill for India to swallow and they must find a way to get past this problem.
Indian cricket remains indebted to Dhoni for everything he has done. But it would be a shame if all that good work is undone in the space of a few months.
