Was dhoni the best Odi captain ?

[Ankit_sharma03]

 

For me Captaincy always comes in play when u have limitation in resources , when u have an ATG team captaincy isnt that much an issue 

If we look at the captains like Lyod, Ponting they had world class team including bowling but in dhoni's case the bowling wasnt as potent as those 2.

 

Looking at his major wins

 

Bowling 

2011 Wc- We had Zak and our 2nd best bowler was yuvraj singh 

2013 CT- Bhuvi(who lacked death bowling), Umesh and Ishant not good LOI bowlers, Ash n Jaddu

2007 t20 wc- RP, Sree, Irfan, Bhajji - among them RP was in top form , sree was inconsistent, Bhajji was decent , Irfan surprisingly did well that to with old ball and ofcourse managing 5th bowler in Sehwag n joginder

2007-08 CB sereis in finals - Irfan, chawla , Ishant, bhajji, PK, Sreesanth...Ishant was injured in 2nd final

 

Batting 

2011 Wc- he had a great batting lineup

2007 t20 Wc- Going in the tournament without Sachin, Ganguly, dravid 

2013 CT- NEw opening pair, kohli not at his peak, DK at 4, Raina n Dhoni struggling for form 

2007 CB- Sachin in form, Gambhir was finding his feat in series, dhoni in form...yuvi out of form, Rohit played 2 good knocks , No kohli or raina , Sehwag in awful form, Uthappa 

 

CSK is another xample where he has managed his resources pretty well 

 

Looking at limited resources that he had compared to a Ponting n Lyod ......for me he was the greatest white ball captain 

Edited August 18, 2020 by Ankit_sharma03

[Vilander]

i think he had his peak. He had his flaws as well but many redeeming qualities that made him great. 

[Ankit_sharma03]

6 minutes ago, Vilander said:

i think he had his peak. He had his flaws as well but many redeeming qualities that made him great. 

everyone has  flaws

[Vilander]

3 hours ago, Ankit_sharma03 said:

everyone has  flaws

Ganguly was a team builder had more chutzpa, Dhoni did better in the tactical decisions and was stoic. Both inspirational in their own ways, Dhoni i respect more. Dhoni is in my opinion the best ODI captain for India, better than Ganguly. He often gambled and won and had specific types of bowlers and conditions that he would manipulate in a match to get to and then win from there. It was also reassuring how he used himself as a batsman and a keeper with intel. Things that worked for him eventually made him look bad in the end when they did not work but he was good in ODI throughout, and very good in home tests except for that Eng series with swan/kp and cook. 

 

In tests its a complex thing to analyze a captains worth beyond me atleast based on my interest level, its very elaborate analysis often impact players from either side have ability to steer many decisions from bad to good and vise versa, and have 1-2 sessions worth of time to themselves to playout their game plan.

[The Realist]

Dhoniconda was the bomb for a time as runs were restricted, pressure built wickets lost and India won. Worked for a while but then started to run out of steam.

 

In contrast Kohli's ODI captaincy has been characterised by being reactive, stale and often choking at critical moments. 

 

[nevada]

6 hours ago, The Realist said:

Dhoniconda was the bomb for a time as runs were restricted, pressure built wickets lost and India won. Worked for a while but then started to run out of steam.

 

In contrast Kohli's ODI captaincy has been characterised by being reactive, stale and often choking at critical moments. 

 

Concise and precise summary of Dhoni's captaincy! 

[Adamant]

He had the Midas touch.

Decisions like giving Joginder Sharma last over,bowling Ishant in 13 ct and Pandya in T20 wc16 required a lot of luck to succeed.

[rtmohanlal]

yes... he has to be...... leading from the front in a world cup final  by involving in the toughest act of chasing and finishing off a huge target...  

[New guy]

There is daylight between him and any other captain, even ganguly 

[cricketfan28]

yes.

[cricket_girl]

I think he is very good, I like him very much

Edited August 31, 2020 by cricket_girl

[neel roy]

Ganguly lost around 7 finals. Had luck been on his side he would have won the wcup ( bad decision winning toss) and the champions trophy two times ( twice washed out against sri lanka: jt winner plus the loss against cairns new Zealand with such a good opening partnership). He lost tri series final against peak aus badly and also some mundane tri series finals against aus,sri lanka etc.. but he won the series against pakistan away..only thing of repute he won was Natwest trophy...

[maniac]

On 8/20/2020 at 2:09 PM, New guy said:

There is daylight between him and any other captain, even ganguly 

 

Ganguly's legacy wouldn't have been remembered for what it was if there as no Dhoni to carry it to new heights

 

Dhoni wouldn't have had a legacy if not for Ganguly's leadership.

 

They have their own contributions.

 

May be in ODI's on field strategy sure Dhoni is ahead. On the premise of the thread though Dhoni was the greatest ODI captain ever sure.

 

Defending targets up to 300 was made into an art onto itself by Dhoni but once the game changed post 2015 which I call the England era when every team were scoring 350+ for fun, had a new outlook and approach and rules changed even more to favor batsman and big scores, Dhoni was found a little wanting. We would never know though because he gave up captaincy by 2016 but even as a player his approach was found a little outdated.

 

We have to call spade a spade despite nostalgia.

 

The point being I agree with  the thread but I don't want to go overboard here.

[Ankit_sharma03]

35 minutes ago, neel roy said:

Ganguly lost around 7 finals. Had

13

35 minutes ago, neel roy said:

Had luck been on his side he would have won the wcup ( bad decision winning toss)

against that aussie side there was nothing called luck, it was that difficult to beat them 

 

35 minutes ago, neel roy said:

and the champions trophy two times ( twice washed out against sri lanka: jt winner plus the loss against cairns new Zealand with such a good opening partnership). He lost tri series final against peak aus badly and also some mundane tri series finals against aus,sri lanka etc.. but he won the series against pakistan away..only thing of repute he won was Natwest trophy...

even against lanka im sure we wont have won in CT ....SL use to choke opp in middle overs with murali n spinners

We had similar matches in comings years against Aus n SL n we lost 

We got better in chasing under dravid n chappell 

Edited August 21, 2020 by Ankit_sharma03

[Ankit_sharma03]

7 hours ago, maniac said:

Dhoni but once the game changed post 2015 which I call the England era when every team were scoring 350+ for fun, had a new outlook and approach and rules changed even more to favor batsman and big scores, Dhoni was found a little wanting

As player he was but as captain cant surely say coz a captain needs team

 

1. Sehwag, gambhir, yuvi, bhajji, zak, sachin all crashed....so whole team core crashed . In a team seniors play huge role and he was the only one left.  Even likes of munaf , irfan n pk were finished.  It became a huge burden on him. Raina problems also started to get in everyones eyes. Yusuf , dk n uthappa had their problems

2. Rohit dhawan show started from 2013 but they to were inexperienced which was seen overseas series like Sa n nz

3. He lacked players as well to play that game- we had jadeja at 7 whose s.r at 7 is around 8 which is shameful. We had rayudu n rahane whose s.r was under 80.  

4. Bowling was also inexp with shami, bhuvi.

5. Our big strength was part timers and those rules tool part timers out of the game. 

 

He wud have done far better had he had players like rahul, pandya , pant,  bumrah, gill coming up. By the time these players started to come . Dont think we had high quality of players coming up those years.  You cant play a 350 game with rahane, rayudu, jadeja in batting lineup 

 

To his credit he still won 2013 ct with them . With that team 2015 semi was also an achievement. 

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by Ankit_sharma03

[SK_IH]

Yes he was.

[Gollum]

8 hours ago, Ankit_sharma03 said:

even against lanka im sure we wont have won in CT ....SL use to choke opp in middle overs with murali n spinners

We had similar matches in comings years against Aus n SL n we lost 

We got better in chasing under dravid n chappell 

This, we were damn lucky that 2002 CT trophy was shared. Seen enough Ind-SL matches (esp in SL where that CT was played) in the pre-MSD era to know how it would have turned out, that team while chasing against SL would give some false hopes now and then but ultimately lose. 2004 Asia Cup final was a good indicator where we couldn't chase 220 odd despite Murali bowling with injury. Dada the captain was a panauti in these multi-nation tourney finals, also had poor control on emotions.

 

That and the 2004 Chennai test, many Indians have the false belief that we were unlucky. Don't agree, we would have one CT less today and Aussies would have been within sight of a historic whitewash in the 2004 series coming to Mumbai, maybe that added motivation would have pushed them over the line making it 4-0 in India!!!! Rain saved us on both occasions. Even the Brisbane 2003 test for that matter, only 280 overs were bowled, without rain they would have set a target of 400 in 4 sessions and we would have crumbled. 

Edited August 22, 2020 by Gollum

[Ankit_sharma03]

14 minutes ago, Gollum said:

This, we were damn lucky that 2002 CT trophy was shared. Seen enough Ind-SL matches (esp in SL where that CT was played) in the pre-MSD era to know how it would have turned out, that team while chasing against SL would give some false hopes now and then but ultimately lose. 2004 Asia Cup final was a good indicator where we couldn't chase 220 odd despite Murali bowling with injury. Also Dada the captain was a panauti in these multi-nation tourney finals, also had poor control on emotions.

 

Even the tvs cup 2003 vs aus where we had them in 220 yet that ian harvey took bunch of wkts and they won

Indian batsman never liked slow pitches which basically were lanka pitches nature. Add final pressure and chasing and their slow bowlers like murali, jayasuria . 

 

14 minutes ago, Gollum said:

That and the 2004 Chennai test, many Indians have the false belief that we were unlucky. Don't agree, we would have one CT less today and Aussies would have been within sight of a historic whitewash in the 2004 series coming to Mumbai, maybe that added motivation would have pushed them over the line making it 4-0 in India!!!! Rain saved us on both occasions. Even the Brisbane 2003 test for that matter, only 280 overs were bowled, without rain they would have set a target of 400 in 4 sessions and we would have crumbled. 

True n brisbane is aus fortress 

[Gollum]

5 minutes ago, Ankit_sharma03 said:

Even the tvs cup 2003 vs aus where we had them in 220 yet that ian harvey took bunch of wkts and they won

Aus really humiliated us in that tournament, rested some of their top choice players, their bowling attack was Bracken(underrated), Brad Williams, Bichel, Harvey, Clarke, Symonds, Bevan. 

Quote

Indian batsman never liked slow pitches which basically were lanka pitches nature. Add final pressure and chasing and their slow bowlers like murali, jayasuria . 

Yup. We were a poor chasing side then, Dravid-Chappell get lots of flak but they changed our attitude. mindset, strategy when it came to chasing. Early 2000s team even with in form players wouldn't have won the QF/F in 2011 WC. 

Quote

True n brisbane is aus fortress 

Yup.

Edited August 22, 2020 by Gollum

[Stan AF]

Steve Waugh. I rate him even high above Pricky (Dubakoor St. Thomas) Ranting.

 

As a middle order batsmen he more than many times led from the front winning from unimaginable positions. There was no way any idiot would have won the 1999 WC if not for Steve. His batting inculcated the unrelenting, guarding the batting fortress at all costs and not bowing down until the match is won.

 

Steve is ten times the batsman of the present generation and the original ice cool captain before the name appropriating brigade here took it for their own.