Is there madness in Dhoni's method?

[zen]

No' date=' I'v been trying to see if Santh in place of Munna and Ashwin in place of Nehra could be a way forward as both can bat a bit, cannot bowl wors than, field reasonably well and last but not the least, atleast have better attitude on-field..[/quote'] Agree w/ you on trying out Sree. Not sure abt using 2 specialist spinners if the pitch isn't spinner friendly and when we have good part time spin options.

[pinkfreud]

**** happens. Batting collapses happens..297 was still a fighting target..Bowlers are their to win you matches and not there to depend on batsmen to give then a "safe score" each and every time..

True, but that still doesn't take away from the fact that the batting that day seriously sucked, to put it lightly. It's not about having a buffer for your bowling, but about just sticking in there when the situation calls for it. Having as little as 10 extra runs on the board would have possibly given us a better chance. The onus can't be placed on the bowling alone.

[vvvslaxman]

Dhoni cannot deny the fact India is trying to make above par total every innings to cover up inadequacy in bowling and fielding. That is where we go wrong. This game can be taken as an example. India almost defended 297. How come they failed to defend 338. That is because whenever they put up above par total they take it easy. They let things drift. And it gives us an illusion that no total is safe for India. No bowler is safe in pattas like Bangalore. Look what happened to Lee, Tait, Johnson against Canada. I don't deny that. But our strength is spin. That is where we should tighten the screws with attacking field set.

[rkt.india]

@vvs you gave example of canada. It was just flash in a pan and still they could manage 211. australia has the kind of bowlers who rattle the team at any time, same with SA. You cannot bash them on every ball. they grab every chance of fighting back.

[rkt.india]

India only havw zak who can match them, can take wickets. To defend totals, we need bowlers who can take wickets, just not filling the overs. Our bowlers are not accurate especially spinners. They give a lot of boundry balls that is why no attacking field

[vvvslaxman]

@vvs you gave example of canada. It was just flash in a pan and still they could manage 211. australia has the kind of bowlers who rattle the team at any time' date=' same with SA. You cannot bash them on every ball. they grab every chance of fighting back.[/quote'] 66 for 1 in 6 overs.. India can also come back against associate sides. We restricted both Ireland and Netherlands. But at the end of the day fact is we tend to relax whenever we put up a large total. Both captain and bowlers.

[rkt.india]

It was 157/2 at once. imagine if brett lee would have been bowling to peterson with 13 runs to get in six balls, he would have certainly done. better

[ravishingravi]

I am out of words to describe Dhoni. Or maybe I am just not interested. I don't think I know more abou cricket than him. But there were 3 or moments in the match where I just knew he has cost India the match. Esp. the last over. The moment he gave the ball to Nehra, I knew the game was gone. I think even Nehra knew it. The Indian team just was shambolic. Munaf and Nehra don't understand the concept of yorkers. I can't see India doing much in the WC. They just don't have the fire power or brain power. But on the upside, we have IPL coming up which we will win.

[cowboysfan]

I am no fan of Dhoni's captaincy but he cant dont much with our incompetent bowlers.He made the right move of giving the ball to Nehra(you cant give a spinner the last over).

[kabira]

It was 157/2 at once. imagine if brett lee would have been bowling to peterson with 13 runs to get in six balls' date=' he would have certainly done. better[/quote'] I remember quite a few IPL games where Brett Lee was taken apart. One of them was Rohit Sharma

[vpg0002]

It is tough for a captain to keep winning whem team members do not perform to their potential. A captain is as good as the team. He can try to extract the best out of them. Like in the last match a good number of batters failed to up the momentum given by the top order, bowling has been mediocre in general and good in small parts and fielding has been sub par. The only thing that is surprising is holding back of Ashwin. Dhoni has been very tactful and I hope he proves himself right of why Ashwin has not played so far. I always liked the crisp comments that Dhoni makes to his team members and infact "Team aise nahin jeet thi hai, jitaana padtaa hai." is one of his punchlines he uses when folks like Raina, Virat do notlive up to his expectation while fielding. Hopefully team India will pull up their socks and start playing better cricket.

[vvvslaxman]

I remember quite a few IPL games where Brett Lee was taken apart. One of them was Rohit Sharma

Robin Uthappa gave him the almighty whopping :cantstop: Vijay thrashed Shaun Tait. On Indian pitches very fast bowlers are spared.

[Bumper]

Cricinfo is becoming even more unreadable ever since they brought Sharda Ugra on their team - more than half of what she writes makes no sense at all.

Completely agree. I have read other pieces of this woman & it is getting worse every article. Claiming that sending Pathan in the midst of PP when Steyn & co was bowling as a mistake, is pure hindsight. Apparently Ms. Ugra, didnt watch the ODI series in SAF. And its not as if Yuvraj, Dhoni, Kohli & others did not get to bat during PPs - all of them did. Unfortunately a combination of some good bowling by Steyn and some errors from our batsmen saw us crumble like a cookie. It is easy to blame Dhoni for things that dont come off, but at the end of the day we squandered the games vs Eng & SAF both by not finishing strong after a spectacular start. In both games, we could have out batted the opponents after 50 overs & sealed the game. Overall the reality is that our team is not as good as it is made out to be. If anything the two games show how much we are dependent on our batting. Even if our batting is slightly off the mark in terms of perfection, we run the risk of losing the game.

[gult]

Stupid article. Why doesn't she wait till the WC is over before criticizing MSD's decisions? It would only cause trouble for the team. He proved many times in the past that he has got great captaincy skills.

[Misu243]

Munna was expensive in the last game against SA but he is a good bowler. What we need to do is remove Nehra immediately.

[Ultimate_Game]

Let's lynch Dhoni after the tourney is over. Don't forget he's one of our most successful captains. He won T20 cup, CB Series in Aus, Asia cup and has yet to lose a Test series. Plus he won IPL and Champions League while captaining his IPL team without any star bowler and with a bowling lineup consisting of Bollinger and 4 spinners. The guy knows his stuff and let's back him and Team India... there are plenty of games to be played in the world cup yet :two_thumbs_up:

[Asim]

MicroSoft Dhoni is extra-cool now days...

[CG]

Let's lynch Dhoni after the tourney is over. Don't forget he's one of our most successful captains. He won T20 cup' date=' CB Series in Aus, Asia cup and has yet to lose a Test series. Plus he won IPL and Champions League while captaining his IPL team without any star bowler and with a bowling lineup consisting of Bollinger and 4 spinners. The guy knows his stuff and let's back him and Team India... there are plenty of games to be played in the world cup yet :two_thumbs_up:[/quote'] ts not his captaincy,its his pathetic attitude,i watch all sports and yet to see such a leader who publicly criticizes players ,I bet indian palyers would not be liking what dhoni has to say about them to media,U look at ponting,strauss.smith,sanga they never publicly pull down players,they may be better educated than dhoni ,but still dhoni is a smart ass and to deflect the blame he resorts to this tactic.

[vvvslaxman]

I won't blame DHoni if we don't make it all the way. Our team is not quiet a balanced unit. Just that his defensive field sets have been haunting us for a while. It works against Australia who likes to play aggressively. But it doesn't work for other teams. So his strategy should depend on team. If he is aggressive with his field set and bowlers give it all and we lose so be it. We can accept we were defeated by better team on a given day and move on.

[OriginalCopy]

I said this before as well, MSD giving the last over to NEhra was not purely a moment of madness. HE has had a history of bowling last overs its another thing that it did not work. But to criticise him right,left and center for it is not done. And in hindsight, had bhajji bowled the last over and SA would have won it, then the same stats of NEhra bowling the last over would have become the cover page news, as to why he was not given the ball when he's arguably our best last over bowler. Hindsight always gives you a better sight, doesn't it?

Totally agree! Giving it to a spinner would have been riskier.