Dhoni's captaincy : Making all the right moves

[Dark Warrior]

Ishant is the Man of the Match for his 4 for 57. "Not really my best performance. I had decided exactly where to bowl in my last over. I knew the slower ball was my strength."

oh ok, thanks bro for ur effort. yeah it was an ordinary speech

[Dark Warrior]

Dhoni should have NEVER walked. No player should ever walk, even if he knows he is out. The umpire is there for a reason - he is the guy who gets paid to give these decisions. Leave it to the umpire to decide whether a batsman is out or not.

I agree!

[Dark Warrior]

hey friends how to change the "Marauder from Najafgarh" below my name?

[Predator_05]

Nah, Pred, it could be the first step in a master plan. Dhoni practices his walking, then does it on the big stage like the World Cup or the World T20 in a crunch match. Everyone lauds him to the heavens. He then publishes a book sold purely by a ridiculous title like "Walking to Victory" further adding to notions of his honesty and purity of soul, then capitalizes forever more by jumping and screaming "WAAAAAAAAAAH" every time a ball passes a bat, while stressing in interviews with the press over his impending sainthood that he only appeals when it's out. BTW, what did I miss in the MOTM speech?

aaah yes, the plan. Shame on me for being such a gullible soul. You didn't miss a whole lot. It was basically a post match presentation which saw lots of moping by everyone. Ishant was told by Arun Lal that he bowled well and his response was a disappointed, "no, not really" followed by some words on how he was thinking about bowling at the death, etc. I'll put up a video of it when i find it. I guess the guys felt really shaken up in the powerplay and Dhoni was walking up to the bowlers more often than he usually does. Dhoni said that the team sometimes "relaxes" on the field. I guess we'll be seeing a sharper, more clinical India take the field for the 3rd ODI - if that's case, god help Sri Lanka. :yikes:

[graphic23]

BTW, what did I miss in the MOTM speech?

Arun Lal had to ask MSD to smile because we'd won the match. He looked a bit miffed that it got so close. He said he wasn't himself during the powerplay and that he lost a bit of cool. He talked about some of the bowlers (prolly Ishant and Zaheer) not having clarity in their thinking when bowling and that led to the match getting so close and that the fielding wasn't at its greatest. (Yeah, he never actually mentioned that it was good that they won). Then, Ishant was so depressing in his speech about not having clarity in his mind about how and where to bowl during the batting powerplay and the reason he bowled the 49th over so well because he was absolutely sure what to do. i think Dhoni might've had a bit of a word with Ishant when on 2 occasions, he got a wicket in the over but gave away 2 boundaries. Anyway, yah, thats what you missed.

[Guest dada_rocks]

It's too early to say but dhoni is going to redefine indian cricket..

[DomainK]

It's too early to say but dhoni is going to redefine indian cricket..

He has already started and its quite clear for everyone to see.

[spectre]

He shouldn't have walked, though its looks good When none of the other teams do that ( also the aussie preachers) why should we gift the wicket Also, dhoni should play his old carefree attacking game atleast after 45 overs. He seems more content to get singles and twos

[Lord]

Nah, Pred, it could be the first step in a master plan. Dhoni practices his walking, then does it on the big stage like the World Cup or the World T20 in a crunch match. Everyone lauds him to the heavens. He then publishes a book sold purely by a ridiculous title like "Walking to Victory" further adding to notions of his honesty and purity of soul, then capitalizes forever more by jumping and screaming "WAAAAAAAAAAH" every time a ball passes a bat, while stressing in interviews with the press over his impending sainthood that he only appeals when it's out. BTW, what did I miss in the MOTM speech?

U CLEARLY DONT LIKE GILCHRIST:haha::haha:

[Lord]

Dhoni should have NEVER walked. No player should ever walk, even if he knows he is out. The umpire is there for a reason - he is the guy who gets paid to give these decisions. Leave it to the umpire to decide whether a batsman is out or not.

I AGREE!its even worse wen u r a selective walker.i have seen dhoni stay after a wrong decision n considering we got two rough ones,he should have stayed,we needed him at that stage n it made a difference of about 20-25 runs

[zubinpepsi]

sachin_rox,, are u related to finleg in anyway?? like its distant cousin or something..??

[Lord]

sachin_rox' date=', are u related to finleg in anyway?? like its distant cousin or something..??[/quote']

[Shane]

Here we go again !!!

[Sachinism]

Seven games. Seven wins. You would think the captain would be happy but Mahendra Singh Dhoni wants his bowlers to raise their game in the end overs. Yesterday, under lights in a tense chase at the R Premadasa, Sri Lanka scored 48 runs in the second batting Powerplay to run India close. Ishant Sharma, eventually, decided the contest in favour of India with a lovely mix of yorkers and slower balls but not before creating a few wrinkles on Dhoni's brow. Zaheer Khan, who didn't have a great opening spell, gave away only 27 in his last five overs as opposed to the 40 that Ishant leaked, even though Ishant's last over cost just a single. In the batting Powerplay, Zaheer went for 20 in three overs while Ishant gave away 22 from two. Prima facie, it would be cruel to pin down the bowlers who won a gripping game for you in the end but it's the path to perfection that India wants to tread on. When he stepped up to receive the Man-of-the-Match award, Ishant mumbled that it was not one of his best performances. Here are the details why the captain and the bowler were not too flushed. "If you are running from the bowling mark, you need to have the thought that this is the ball you are going to bowl," Dhoni said. "Accordingly you place your fielders. If you are in two minds, you are really confused about what you are doing. If you have just one thought, you can execute it better." The details don't reveal poor bowling as we conventionally know it - no width, rank long-hops or full tosses were offered - but an imperfect execution of plans. In the 43rd over, Ishant bowled an attempted yorker which flew off the inner edge past the short fine-leg fielder. In the 45th he bowled a short ball which was pulled to the unmanned deep midwicket boundary before another attempted yorker was squeezed past short third man. Zaheer, who Dhoni felt had an off day, slipped in a few full deliveries which were dispatched easily to unguarded areas. "If you are bowling a bouncer, you don't need a long on and a long-off," Dhoni said. "If you are bowling a slower one, you don't really need a third man, you can have a deep midwicket. At the same time you can confuse the batsmen also have this field and bowl a yorker. But if the ball is completely different than what the field is, then at times, you have a greater chance to give away a boundary." It's clarity of thought that Dhoni is seeking from the bowlers. In Dhoni speak, "It's better to have a plan - may be a bad plan - in mind than be confused". During the end overs, Dhoni was seen running to his bowlers repeatedly, extending his arms in anger when a fielder fumbled or was not alert enough to the situation. So is Dhoni the cool captain? How does Dhoni see himself? "You are never cool. In international cricket when there is pressure on you, you are never cool," Dhoni said. "You give the opportunity to the bowler and say you bowl according to your plan, to your field but at times when it doesn't work, you turn from a democratic captain to a monopoly. You become like a king and say no more powers, this is the field and you bowl according to the field." Then he went on to say something very interesting about how he wants the bowlers to grow and what he wants his bowlers to do. "It's always better to give the first preference to the bowler. With experience, with their own plan, they will get better. You don't want them to be running around to the captain to find out what they should bowl. They will grow if they learn by themselves. "By then, they would have matured and learnt that certain plans worked against these batsmen, these didn't work and will know what to bowl. They automatically mature. If you keep spoon feeding them, they won't learn too much." Like he shuffles his batting line-up, Dhoni jiggles with the bowling order as well. "It depends on who is the third seamer. If Praveen Kumar is playing, the best opportunity for him to take wickets is with the new ball as he is a swing bowler," he said. "Ishant can bowl with a new and slightly older ball. In ODIs, you generally have three fast bowlers and you have to combine them together so that as a unit you become a good bowling attack." This Indian ODI attack is indeed looking pretty good and is bound to get better once Harbhajan Singh returns. Till then, a few more wrinkles might still furrow Dhoni's forehead.

[Online]

can you please update the dhoni's captaincy record thread?

[Sachinism]

can you please update the dhoni's captaincy record thread?

I have just haven't bumped it yet

[fineleg]

It's clarity of thought that Dhoni is seeking from the bowlers. In Dhoni speak, "It's better to have a plan - may be a bad plan - in mind than be confused". .

If he can get the bowlers to draw up a plan and stick to it, kudos to him :thumbs_up:

[satishg]

If he can get the bowlers to draw up a plan and stick to it' date=' [b']kudos to him :thumbs_up:

so only if he does that u ll give him the credit is it and not for the things that he has already done to Indian cricket till now :P anyway this man knows wat he is doing..we all have to thank Dada to have backed MSD in that ODI series against pakistan..Dada is a legend :icflove:

[fineleg]

so only if he does that u ll give him the credit is it and not for the things that he has already done to Indian cricket till now :P anyway this man knows wat he is doing..we all have to thank Dada to have backed MSD in that ODI series against pakistan..Dada is a legend :icflove:

^ now ur twisting my words :D, i didnt say that.

[King]

Way too much hype about this captaincy stuff. If you have a good enough team you will end up winning consistently. Look at the likes of Jayawardene or Ponting right now. Weren't they chosen as the best skippers by the ICC just a short while ago? What is that they have changed now that they don't win enough? The media just likes winners and hypes them up way more than necessary. They have to sell you see. Dhoni isn't bad, he's quite good but to attribute wins to him is insane. When you have a team full of players that can bat and bowl obviously you will end up on the winning side. In fact in the last game Dhoni pretty much screwed up. He wasn't able to hit a ball from the middle of the bat during the Powerplay 3, ran Yousuf Pathan out (I thought Pathan was more capable of scoring quick runs than Dhoni) and then feathered a ball to the wicket keeper that should have been smacked for four. Despite all this he won, if he has issues with the last win he should be looking in the mirror. He pretty much stuffed the game up but fortunately for him the bowlers came to rescue as usual with the bat and the ball. Dhoni deserves accolades for the wins but there is too much hype surrounding his captaincy. In fact he's smart enough to know this and just a few days ago he mentioned a captain is only as good as his team.