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Kohli-Dhoni Bond Cost India The World Cup ; Dhoni batting explained


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44 minutes ago, rkt.india said:

Dhoni has become the biggest problem. In SF, team had to sacrifice Pant, Pandya, DK, Jaddu just to save Dhoni. Why didn't Dhoni come at 4 or even after a collapse. You are sending DK at 5 who had barely played 10 balls in this WC then you send Pandya at 4/24 who has usually only batted up the order when you need slogging.

I don’t buy the theory that only problem with current Team India is wicket keeper position.

 

Or wk position Is biggest reason why we llost. Tbh, before tournament, I expected team India to barely make it to semis. Points table during leagues stage doesn’t reflect how bad we were as a side. If it wasn’t Rohit, this team would have not made it to semis. Thats how poor the team is. 

Edited by mishra
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Didn't 99% of all Indian cricket experts/pundits want Dhoni in the WC squad as first choice WK? 

 

To the credit of ICFers, vast majority, including me, wanted Dhoni gone post CT 2017 itself. Didn't happen and then writing was on the wall. Seems like Dhoni wanted his fairytale ending.

 

No use crying over spilt milk now. 

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39 minutes ago, vvvslaxman said:

I wish Kohli had batted like Dhoni in the semi final lol. Just staying without scoring runs. He would have played much better. That is what Kane is doing every match. He just doesn't take risks for 30 balls then he picks up the pace.

Actually this is not bad ploy. Yesterday i went to bat as number 7 bat in our local derby( match between two local towns). On the other side, a young kid was batting. We needed nearly 40+ runs at rrr of 6 an over and our captain ( number 11) was umpiring. As soon as i walked in, skipper said. Look, there is no  batting to come. Don’t bother about what people are shouting from boundry, just go for a draw which would give us 7 points off possible 24 points.

i played one whole over without scoring a run. Next over, young kid scored 10 runs. Skipper came and said to both of us. Do not get out trying to chase victory. But I decided i will rather risk my wicket when rrr was over 7 but just 20 runs to victory. Did that. We won as last over , we just needed 5 runs to win. Cricket is all about mind games because with 20 runs to chase I showed opposing captain, that we are going for victory which resulted him making field change mistakes 

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While I agree Dhoni should have come at no4/no5 , he played like a meek pussy cat while Jadeja was playing like a caged tiger.Dhoni should have been kicked out long time before this world cup.

 

Kohli is the biggest culprit, he should have been able to hold his end up and guided that chase, he has failed on way too many times on big occasions.

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9 hours ago, Sgattick10 said:

Bad Selection, Kohli-Dhoni Bond Cost India The World Cup

 
Published : July 14, 2019 14:19 IST
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After Shikhar Dhawan's injury, the Indian team eventually settled on a batting line up that consisted of three top-order batsmen, three wicketkeeper batsmen and a floating all-rounder. Two of the non-keeping wicket keepers were drafted in as replacements for two batsmen-who-could-bowl. Kedar Jadhav and Vijay Shankar were used as bits-and-pieces players whose bowling bits were barely used. The really interesting thing about this World Cup squad was that India's selectors couldn't find a single specialist middle-order batsman out of the hundreds of hopefuls thrown up by Indian cricket's several formats when they chose the original squad.

The weirdness of India's team shape was apparent the moment Dhawan fractured his finger. It had a head and a lower body but no torso. The top order was agonizingly aware of this absence throughout the tournament. India's 'old-fashioned' approach to slowly building an innings in the first ten overs instead of attacking the bowling with just two players outside the ring, much remarked on by commentators, had nothing to do with retro strategy and everything to do with the fear of a vacant middle, the total lack of quality, resilience or fire-power at Nos 4, 5 and 6.

vdcsaes8_virat-kohli-afp_625x300_11_July_19.jpg

Virat Kohli is not a man known for deferring to the wisdom of others.

Nobody knew why a batsman as raw and as tentative as Vijay Shankar was playing as India's batting fulcrum at 4 or what Kedar Jadhav was doing in the team at all if he wasn't going to bowl at least five overs. His claim to be a specialist batsman was thoroughly undermined when he was demoted in the batting order below Dhoni.

Dhoni came in variously at 5, 6 and 7. Except for one brief cameo early on, his batting was vintage end-period Dhoni. Every innings had six parts. Part One: take guard and indicate imperturbability by leaving a ball outside the off-stump. Part Two: shovel balls back to the bowler or short cover, then take a single by nurdling the ball to leg. Part Three: shovel balls back to the bowler or short cover, then take a single by nurdling the ball to leg. Part Four: repeat, piling the responsibility for making runs on the other batsman till he gets himself out doing something rash/or rush out at the spinner and miss the ball entirely. Part Five: left with the lower order, start racing singles and twos when boundaries are essential and the asking rate balloons. Part Six: enigmatically refuse singles in the terminal overs, flail and fail to make contact, then finally pull a couple of face-saving boundaries in the last over.

The problem with Dhoni was not that he failed to get India over the line; all players do their best to win and it's in the nature of sport that not all of them will succeed. The problem was Dhoni's inability to recognize that in a crunch situation with Pandya or Jadeja, he was the dispensable batsman who could be sacrificed going for the big hit. The problem was that he pantomimed the slowly-slowly routine of the nerveless finisher without the firepower to pull it off in the end and that he continued to do this, match after match, without the team leadership telling him that he was delusional and changing his role.

The reason the leadership didn't do this was Dhoni's standing in the team. He was, for passages of each match, its fielding regent. His standing as elder statesman and former World Cup winning captain was obvious to everyone. There was something almost moving about his fraternal relationship with Kohli, not a man known for deferring to the wisdom of others. Dhoni wasn't the team's senior pro, he was, if you like, its playing non-captain which, given vice-captain Rohit Sharma's standing as a limited overs leader, was curious.

This meant that Dhoni was tasked with both tweaking the field when India was bowling and marshalling its lower order batting which began as early as No. 5. The extent of his discretion in this area was evident in the willingness of his batting partners to defer to his tempo as soon as he came to the crease and, most obviously, in his bizarre decision to bat out the overs against England instead of making a final assault on a daunting total.

India didn't lose because of Dhoni. India lost because New Zealand were better on the day and because the Indian selectors chose, in their wisdom, batsmen who could turn their arm over instead of specialist middle-order batsmen. This gaping hole forced Dhoni into a pivotal lower-order role that he was now incapable of playing. This, in turn, given his standing in the team, had batsmen like Pandya and Jadhav deferring to his lead. His role in this team was shaped by a queer mix of ancestor worship and magical thinking. Dhoni, one of cricket's great realists, ironically drank the Kool-Aid, and reprised a surreal self-assurance that he could no longer back up. Some men have hubris thrust upon them.

Mukul Kesavan is a writer based in Delhi. His most recent book is 'Homeless on Google Earth' (Permanent Black, 2013).

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.
 

amazing article. Hammers it.

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