fineleg Posted May 9, 2008 Share Posted May 9, 2008 Then Un%d3ersTaNt that even C$K can be MoMs! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temujin Khaghan Posted May 9, 2008 Share Posted May 9, 2008 Lalit modi is trying to justify his price tag. inside politics stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sachinism Posted May 9, 2008 Share Posted May 9, 2008 Dont think he's lost it, but just couldnt get the timing right the other day Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ram Posted May 9, 2008 Share Posted May 9, 2008 Its not on the wane, he's simply been figured out. He is still a very good ODI batsman, but because of his limited no. of shots, he can whack only certain type of deliveries for boundaries on a consistent basis. All bowlers know by now that if they pitch it up, or bowl too short to Dhoni, they are toast. Even spinners dont pitch it up to Dhoni. So no sane bowler is gonna serve up boundary balls to Dhoni. Dhoni is powerful, can hit the ball hard, but is not an expert at improvising or placing the ball where he wants. (I have seen Sachin, Yuvraj and more recently Rohit Sharma do that consistently, when they are in the mood). Besides, Dhoni himself has mellowed down a bit because of increased responsibilities. All this means, its not gonna rain boundaries everytime he goes out to bat, like it used to before. But inspite of his decline in big hitting, he still maintains a healthy strike rate, which combined with his great average, makes him one of the best ODI batsman of this era. How can you 'figure' out a big-hitter? If not pitching it up or bowling too short to Dhoni was the universal counter to his power, then bowlers would have done it long ago and not allowed him to go on a rampage like he did in the first 12-15 months of his career. Yes, the bowlers have definitely learnt to bowl better at him, but I think its also got a lot to do with Dhoni too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest HariSampath Posted May 9, 2008 Share Posted May 9, 2008 Sriram, I agree with almost all of Bump's post. In International/national cricket, cricketers are getting smarter by the day, with the stakes so high, the amount of evidence available on players, graphics analysis etc. They know precisely what each and every batter likes and what he hates and bowl accordingly. Dhoni is a player who has great gifts of eye, reflexes, and just brute power , and any bad delivery or even marginally bad delivery would be put away ferociously. He is unorthodox and its an advantage as well as disadvantage. He can conjure up the most outrageous shots, but for a clever steady line/length bowling, he can also be kept cramped. A lot depends on the timing he gets into his shots in the first 2 overs he plays, if its good, then he can play a big one, but if it is bad, he usually struggles for his shots , but he manages to get a run a ball 30-40 inngs by playing 2-3 big shots and taking plenty of singles. The more you play against International bowlers, the easier it is to have a gameplan, and the successful batters are those who have alternate batting plans and devise new means of scoring in all kinds of circumstances. Dhoni has also been a bit restrained after he became India captain in the T20 wc, if you notice , this has been evident in all his inngs, tests, ODIs or even T20s. But still Dhoni is a tremendous batter, capable of taking apart any top International bowler on his day, like we saw him do against BRC and Steyn.., when he plays like that he can win matches off his own bat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bumper Posted May 9, 2008 Share Posted May 9, 2008 How can you 'figure' out a big-hitter? If not pitching it up or bowling too short to Dhoni was the universal counter to his power, then bowlers would have done it long ago and not allowed him to go on a rampage like he did in the first 12-15 months of his career. Yes, the bowlers have definitely learnt to bowl better at him, but I think its also got a lot to do with Dhoni too. If you look at the big hitting batsmen who have done well consistently in their careers (the likes of Viv, Gilly, Yuvi, Pietersen, Jayasuriya, to quote a few), most of them are proper batsmen. In addition to big slogging hits, they can square cut, cover drive, on drive etc. Because they have so many options, they are hard to stop once they are set. After a while, most international teams will figure out the strengths & weaknesses of all batsmen. As a result, you no longer see bowlers, feeding to Dhoni's and Afridi's strengths. But Dhoni is still infinitely smarter than the likes of Afridi, which is why he is successful. However because of his limited range of shots, he cannot produce big hitting knocks (like his 149 vs Pak or his 183 vs SL, when he was hitting boundaries with his eyes closed), as consistently as we were used to seeing early in his career. Dhoni has changed, I'll agree, but its not just that. Many times, in the slog overs, even when is looking to attack, we've seen him cramped up by line & length. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ram Posted May 9, 2008 Share Posted May 9, 2008 Fair enough, I agree with whats been said in the previous two posts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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