New Zealand Tour of India 2012

[Ultimate_Game]

Dhoni was the second highest scorer in the team and he is successful , but SRT was the second highest scorer in both England and Australia and he was unsuccessful? How has his captaincy not been shabby. Did he not let England off the hook when they were 6 wickets down, Did he not let Australia off the hook when they were 27 for 4. Did he not spread the field and wait for the batsmen to make a mistake while Clarke scored a triple and Punter a double, or when KP or Bell or Prior or broad were batting. All that happened during crucial junctures of the matches which could have changed the result.

Unsuccessful coz he's the specialist batsman and not a no. 7 wk. SRT has gone 13 Tests without a 100 and frankly it's a worry to see him getting clean bowled. As a no. 4 specialist batsman when you are out-performed by a no. 7 wk it is a big deal. Yes, Dhoni did spread the field in Aus especially when tail was playing with a batsman and I do blame him for it. He should have been more aggressive and not given easy singles. But would you say that Dhoni's spreading the field was the biggest reason we lost? And not the p**s poor batting which couldn't muster 200 most of the times and couldn't even manage one whole session without losing a wkt? Also, teh fact that Dhoni never had any runs to play with one of the reasons for spreading the field? Or maybe his bowler's inability to keep a tight line? Second guessing Dhoni's captaincy is fine but a captain can't do very much if his team gets bundled out cheaply time and again and he has no runs to play with. Yes, Dhoni's captaincy wasn't that great but our batting has to hold the can for the 0-8 debacle.

[Crookbond]

Sachin Tendulkar (since 2011 WC) Tests No code has to be inserted here. ODIs No code has to be inserted here. :elefant:

[Ultimate_Game]

How much do you rate Dhoni's captaincy and his batting in England and Australia on a scale of 1-10? Are you saying Dhoni should not take any responsibity for 9-3 in the last 4 series despite two of them being at home?

I already did the rating of various areas on the tour to Aus & Eng in the "Dhoni should resign" thread. I will copy my post from that thread...

If I had to rate various skills from a scale of 1-10, with 10 taking the most blame and 0 totally blameless this is how I would rate various disciplines on our away tours where we went 0-8... 1. Batting - 10. Our batting was cr@p where we didn't even last one session without losing a wkt over 8 tests. We couldn't string even one partnership and never troubled the opposing bowlers. 2. Bowling - 7. Even if we managed to take wkts we seldom put sustained pressure on the opponent batsmen. We gave away hit me balls every over and Umesh's RR of 4.5 in Aus says it all. 3. Fitness/Match Readiness/Coaching staff - 8. We were so unfit for the matches, especially the Eng one. Half the team looked fat and unfir as if they had wandered on to the ground on vacation. Zak going down on the Day 1 of the 1st Test, Harbhajan playing with a side strain and leaving us a bowler short in the 2nd test and Sehwag being fast-tracked into the team when clearly unfit were case-in points. BCCI and physios should have been forced to be more accountable for these fiascos. 4. Fielding - 6. Our fielding looked so 70ish with Dravid dropping dollies in the slips and players like Laxman, Sehwag, Tendulkar 7 Ashwin in the field. It almost looked as if seniors cricket team was playing a game. 5. Captaincy - 5. Dhoni was way too defensive with his fielding especially when the tail-enders were batting with a batsman. He allowed opponents easy singles when he should have attacked them more. But to be fair Dhoni never had the luxury of too many runs in the bank or bowlers who could bowl to a field.

[Old guy]

http://www.indiancricketfans.com/showpost.php?p=2092972&postcount=307 :vroam:

[Crookbond]

MS Dhoni (since WC 2011) Tests No code has to be inserted here. ODIS No code has to be inserted here.

[Ultimate_Game]

http://www.indiancricketfans.com/showpost.php?p=2092972&postcount=307 :vroam:

Kameeeeennnnaayyyyy main tera khooooon pee jaoonga :hitler:

[Old guy]

Kameeeeennnnaayyyyy main tera khooooon pee jaoonga :hitler:

:pardon:

[Crookbond]

Tendulkar's performance drop Tests - 36% ODIs - 30% MS Dhoni performance drop Tests - 18% ODIs - 65 % increase

[ganeshran]

Unsuccessful coz he's the specialist batsman and not a no. 7 wk. SRT has gone 13 Tests without a 100 and frankly it's a worry to see him getting clean bowled. As a no. 4 specialist batsman when you are out-performed by a no. 7 wk it is a big deal.

Correct, and hence the expectations are lower from Dhoni. There is no expectations of tons everytime he steps in. But I do expect him to grind it out in the middle even if it was painful and he didnt get a lot of runs. The main problem was that he never showed any fight. Especially in the second test in England where we already had a lead and Yuvraj had got out. Or in the Boxing day test, where we we 214/3 and the rest of the batsmen had to perform even average to ensure a decent lead and we could have won the match especially since we had them 27 for 4 later. In these situations you expect your skipper to hold fort and sweat it out in the middle. I dont care if he has a sub 25 average even if he just stayed there while the other side also scores runs, we could have atleast lost a bit more respectfully, but

Yes, Dhoni did spread the field in Aus especially when tail was playing with a batsman and I do blame him for it. He should have been more aggressive and not given easy singles. But would you say that Dhoni's spreading the field was the biggest reason we lost? And not the p**s poor batting which couldn't muster 200 most of the times and couldn't even manage one whole session without losing a wkt? Also, teh fact that Dhoni never had any runs to play with one of the reasons for spreading the field? Or maybe his bowler's inability to keep a tight line? Second guessing Dhoni's captaincy is fine but a captain can't do very much if his team gets bundled out cheaply time and again and he has no runs to play with. Yes, Dhoni's captaincy wasn't that great but our batting has to hold the can for the 0-8 debacle.

I dont separate Dhoni from the team batting. He is a part of the batting side and hence expected to contribute. Of course not as much as the top 6 do, but like I said, he should step up as well. Now with the seniors gone and SRT's retirement looming near, we are going to 150 or 160-5 quite often, Dhoni has to step up in those situations and score runs. If he is going to be poor with the bat and given the rest of the tail is hopeless, how on earth will we win matches both abroad and at home?

[Crookbond]

Rahul Dravid (since WC 2011) No code has to be inserted here. VVS Laxman (since WC 2011) No code has to be inserted here.

[Old guy]

Tendulkar's performance drop Tests - 36% ODIs - 30% MS Dhoni performance drop Tests - 18% ODIs - 65 % increase

36 drop is from greatness while 18 percent is form already average to pathetic imo they both need to be kicked out :sniffle:

[Ultimate_Game]

Correct, and hence the expectations are lower from Dhoni. There is no expectations of tons everytime he steps in. But I do expect him to grind it out in the middle even if it was painful and he didnt get a lot of runs. The main problem was that he never showed any fight. Especially in the second test in England where we already had a lead and Yuvraj had got out. Or in the Boxing day test, where we we 214/3 and the rest of the batsmen had to perform even average to ensure a decent lead and we could have won the match especially since we had them 27 for 4 later. In these situations you expect your skipper to hold fort and sweat it out in the middle. I dont care if he has a sub 25 average even if he just stayed there while the other side also scores runs, we could have atleast lost a bit more respectfully, but I dont separate Dhoni from the team batting. He is a part of the batting side and hence expected to contribute. Of course not as much as the top 6 do, but like I said, he should step up as well. Now with the seniors gone and SRT's retirement looming near, we are going to 150 or 160-5 quite often, Dhoni has to step up in those situations and score runs. If he is going to be poor with the bat and given the rest of the tail is hopeless, how on earth will we win matches both abroad and at home?

Yes, Dhoni should have done better with the bat than what he did. IIRC he averaged in high 20s with the bat when he should have been averaging in mid 30s. But it wouldn't be right to blame wk for the collective batting failures of the batsmen. Top 6 are in the side of their ability to score runs and that's there sole reason and if the batting fails they have to take most of the blame. You can't blame a no. 7 as much as say the other specialist batsmen just like you can't blame a part-timer for the failings of specialist bowlers. The intent of the thread was not to be a Dhoni Vs Tendulkar, or Y Vs Z comparison. The idea was to what next if we hit the nadir, i.e. fail to beat kiwis at home. To me the bigger worry is the failings of our top order. When 3 of the top 4 batsmen are walking wkts team will always be under pressure and you can't expect lower order to bail out the team time and again. As I said earlier in the thread I would get the youngsters in and let Dhoni captain for the near future till a youngster (Kohli or Pujara) is ready to take over captaincy. Once that happens, Dhoni can retire from Tests. But at this point if you ask me which is the bigger problem - our batting or our captaincy, my answer would be our batting which is what needs to be overhauled ASAP.

[Trichromatic]

Wow! I thought ICF was not active today, but this is probably most fired up thread in long time.

[Ultimate_Game]

36 drop is from greatness while 18 percent is form already average to pathetic imo they both need to be kicked out :sniffle:

An average of 38 in Tests is greatness for wks :dontknow: Other than 2-3 wks I am not aware of wks who averaged more than Dhoni in Tests.

[Ultimate_Game]

Wow! I thought ICF was not active today' date=' but this is probably most fired up thread in long time.[/quote'] Threat of losing to kiwis at home does that to you :haha:

[Old guy]

An average of 38 in Tests is greatness for wks :dontknow: Other than 2-3 wks I am not aware of wks who averaged more than Dhoni in Tests.

refer to outy's post i quoted :phehehe:

[Old guy]

anyway this match will finish with ashwin special u first heard it here :cheer:

[Crookbond]

U_G, Here is ammunition for you. I see that Tendulkar-Dhoni (in terms of batting) an unfair comparison. Very few WK's in cricket's history average in the 40s and Dhoni is averaging 37. The expectation from Tendulkar and MS Dhoni wrt batting is different in Test matches. The sooner people accept that the better it is. Batting Averages of Wicket Keepers in Test Matches - played at least 50 games - scored at least 3000 runs No code has to be inserted here. If MS Dhoni ends up exactly at the same position No.4 where he is now, I think we should be more than happy as a WK batsman.

[Trichromatic]

WK-batsmen (min 20 matches) No code has to be inserted here.

[Old guy]

^ I see that it is an unfair comparison. Very few WK's in cricket's history average in the 40s and Dhoni is averaging 37. The expectation from Tendulkar and MS Dhoni wrt batting is different in Test matches. The sooner people accept that the better it is. Batting Averages of Wicket Keepers in Test Matches - played at least 50 games - scored at least 3000 runs No code has to be inserted here. If MS Dhoni ends up exactly at the same position No.4 where he is now, I think we should be more than happy.

honestly its not jsut stats...we saw saha bat in australia he almost survived for session we never saw fight like tht form dhoni anyway its more of captaincy then batting.. and dhoni never seemed interested he can continue to be keeper but i will pick saha over him in away games