Dhoni: from instinctive to inflexible

[G_B_]

He did not leave out any one who was performing. He didn't have much choice.

then maybe the selectors need to give him a choice. He had a choice bewteen Balaji and Dinda. He made the call and see what Dinda was bowling like and felt Zaheer was better. The fact is he should have had the choice of proper openers. Why did we have a Tiwary as a selection choice and not a Rahane/Dhawan/Uttappa as cover for the openers who everybody knew were not in form? why was there an overload of spinners in the side? with so many part time spin options as well. these are the things selectors need to be blamed for. Who knows if the side had a back up opening we would not have to open with Irfan?

[G_B_]

LOL, you talk as if Dhoni was performing brilliantly during the one and half years. The first guy to be dropped on non-performance should be him. His being in the team itself is symptomatic of how clueless selectors have been. Can't bat in tests and T20s. In ODIs we werent able to win a crucial match in the CB series because of his leaving things till way too late.

actually in this WC dhoni has some solid stats which nobody can argue against.His keeping has been good. Now on the whole, Dhoni is a poor T20 player based on strike rate. But how many international T20s have India played? People talk about punts and risks. Maybe you need to play a lot more games to make options available to you. the tour of sl was supposed to be 3 odis and 3 t20s. It became 5 odis and 1 t20. and if we dropped dhoni for the tests for a batsman batting at 7 and averaging 30 odd. We would have to drop the entire team. Its not as if dhoni was the only non performing asset. The entire team was poor. Clearly somebody needs stay on despite performing poorly.

[G_B_]

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/icc-world-twenty20-2012/engine/records/averages/batting_bowling_by_team.html?id=6856;team=6;type=tournament these are the batting and bowling stats from the T20 world cup msd an average of 32 and strike rate of 127. Now MSD has been slow in this format on the whole. Which is why he needs to call quits in this format and concentrate on the tests and ODIs. But to blame him alone in the t20 world cup and defeats is poor logic. against SA and aus he came in with a india in trouble with wickets down. He bailed us out v Sa but could not v aus. The fact is India were let down by Sehwag Gambhir and Zaheer khan in this world cup. Simple. Dhoni did not have the options to make changes with 2 of them. Sehwag and Gambhir had no back up opener. Lets also keep in mind India in the asia cup and even this WC did win the majority of their matches. did anybody really expect Aus to capitulate so badly v Pakistan? 4 wins out of 5 matches means its certainly not as the 2009 and 2010 wc where we were just poor. Now we know of that pitch batting first wins you the game as 3 matches with lowish scores the team batting first has won the game.

[Crookbond]

Soon we will also see him blamed for Tendulkar getting bowled - just wait and watch.

[ganeshran]

actually in this WC dhoni has some solid stats which nobody can argue against.His keeping has been good. Now on the whole, Dhoni is a poor T20 player based on strike rate. But how many international T20s have India played? People talk about punts and risks. Maybe you need to play a lot more games to make options available to you. the tour of sl was supposed to be 3 odis and 3 t20s. It became 5 odis and 1 t20. and if we dropped dhoni for the tests for a batsman batting at 7 and averaging 30 odd. We would have to drop the entire team. Its not as if dhoni was the only non performing asset. The entire team was poor. Clearly somebody needs stay on despite performing poorly.

Can you organize your reply in paragraphs? Walls of text are hard to read and respond to. Dhoni was nothing special in this T20, scored some 60 odd runs and wasnt able to perform at crucial times i.e. Australia match. He is a poor T20 player for someone who is supposedly so good at the limited overs game. In tests, no we wouldnt have to drop the whole team if we dropped Dhoni. Ashwin batted better than Dhoni which shows that you can do well if you show some application and fight at the crease. With seniors not doing so well and a rookie middle order. Dhoni is expected to take some responsibility and dig the team out of the hole in crisis situations. The problem with him is his lack of technique makes it impossible for him to a be a consistently good test batsmen. Like I posted before, you cannot be a good test batsman without having a proper forward defence, hard handed ugly swats back to the bowler don't count. Kohli was facing the same issue in windies and first test in Australia before he adjusted very well to test match batting. Sehwag for all his issues, has a brilliant balance and defence, even though he relies on hand eye coordination to offset lack of footwork. With Dhoni, he will continue to fail in tests apart from the half decent knock here and there. Between him and numbers 9,10,11, the only decent batsmen is Ashwin given how quickly our tail folds.

[Sidhoni]

Soon we will also see him blamed for Tendulkar getting bowled - just wait and watch.

:giggle:

[G_B_]

Can you organize your reply in paragraphs? Walls of text are hard to read and respond to. Dhoni was nothing special in this T20' date=' scored some 60 odd runs and wasnt able to perform at crucial times i.e. Australia match. He is a poor T20 player for someone who is supposedly so good at the limited overs game.[/quote'] ok will do with the paragraphs. Dhoni was nothing special is probably an apt conclusion. But he was not a liability either. Sehwag and Gambhir were liabilities. Dragging the performance down. Yes Dhoni needs to call it a day from T20. I accept that. However, i refuse to blame Dhoni for this loss. Well in the 8-0 loss, we has a top 6 of sehwag gambhir dravid sachin laxman. Lets make an allowance for the openers being injured for some of the tests. Thats not a rookie middle order. The first time we had a truly rookie middle order was v NZ. During that series Dhoni did dig in. I am not saying Dhoni would have dug in away from home. But we never had a rookie order under him. So that point is moot. He may have problems with his technique but the bottomline is runs.

[Sean Bradley]

What a master peice by Akash Chopra, great insight, pretty much spilled the beans over dhonis failuers as a captain in Test's & T20's, Dhoni is shileded by the worldcup which was pretty much won single handedly by yuvi & raina, or it would have been the end of him by now from all formats, dhoni has bee reluctant to take any sort of risk, indian team's captaincy after a point bites you, and bites you bad, happened to sachin, dravid, ganguly and now i am afraid, its Dhoni !

[G_B_]

I would also like to point out. Who would replace Dhoni as a test keeper? Kartick? Uttappa? Saha? Apart from the T20s in the case of Kartick and Uttappa i dont think these guys have it in them to replace Dhoni in the tests or ODIs. Making a call for Dhoni to step down is one thing. But axing him when no real contender is there seems like a sure shot fail.

[Old guy]

What a master peice by Akash Chopra' date=' great insight, pretty much spilled the beans over dhonis failuers as a captain in Test's & T20's, Dhoni is shileded by the worldcup which was pretty much won single handedly by yuvi & raina, or it would have been the end of him by now from all formats, dhoni has bee reluctant to take any sort of risk, indian team's captaincy after a point bites you, and bites you bad, happened to sachin, dravid, ganguly and now i am afraid, its Dhoni ![/quote'] single handedly by yuvi and raina? :omg: wht abt zack,tendulkar,gambhir,in final dhoni himself ..ashwin ? :hmmm:

[Old guy]

I would also like to point out. Who would replace Dhoni as a test keeper? Kartick? Uttappa? Saha? Apart from the T20s in the case of Kartick and Uttappa i dont think these guys have it in them to replace Dhoni in the tests or ODIs. Making a call for Dhoni to step down is one thing. But axing him when no real contender is there seems like a sure shot fail.

actually.. i think in tests saha or some new guy can play but in odis and t20 i cant see any one as good as him... about captain.. person who will replace him does not need to become captain..from time being in test give it to zack or go smith way and give it to kohli im tired of his captaincy in tests.. in odis only his selection makes me :wall:

[rkt.india]

Can you organize your reply in paragraphs? Walls of text are hard to read and respond to. Dhoni was nothing special in this T20, scored some 60 odd runs and wasnt able to perform at crucial times i.e. Australia match. He is a poor T20 player for someone who is supposedly so good at the limited overs game. In tests, no we wouldnt have to drop the whole team if we dropped Dhoni. Ashwin batted better than Dhoni which shows that you can do well if you show some application and fight at the crease. With seniors not doing so well and a rookie middle order. Dhoni is expected to take some responsibility and dig the team out of the hole in crisis situations. The problem with him is his lack of technique makes it impossible for him to a be a consistently good test batsmen. Like I posted before, you cannot be a good test batsman without having a proper forward defence, hard handed ugly swats back to the bowler don't count. Kohli was facing the same issue in windies and first test in Australia before he adjusted very well to test match batting. Sehwag for all his issues, has a brilliant balance and defence, even though he relies on hand eye coordination to offset lack of footwork. With Dhoni, he will continue to fail in tests apart from the half decent knock here and there. Between him and numbers 9,10,11, the only decent batsmen is Ashwin given how quickly our tail folds.

If you expect a #7 batsman to make up for top order batsmen then I guess you yourself know where the team stands.

[G_B_]

actually.. i think in tests saha or some new guy can play but in odis and t20 i cant see any one as good as him... about captain.. person who will replace him does not need to become captain..from time being in test give it to zack or go smith way and give it to kohli im tired of his captaincy in tests.. in odis only his selection makes me :wall:

that fasto zaheer can barely get through his overs. You want to hand him captaincy? As for Saha in tests. I personally have never rated Saha. D KArtick is somebody i do rate but his form in the domestics has dropped. Uttappa and maybe Parthiv Patel are probably the only ones who can replace Dhoni in the T20s. But they are both **** keepers. It would be like India playing their version of K Akmaal. As i have mentioned before, selectors need to make the choices for Dhoni in many cases. Give him such a squad that it ensures that sane selections can be made. There is not much Dhoni can do if the best 15 in terms of form youth etc are selected. Look at the test v NZ. Why would you select Raina who Dhoni likes to play? Why not select a proper batsman or tell Dhoni that he has to pick people from the remaining sqaud which meant Badri would play? The captain is only as affective as the people given to him. The selectors act as a check and balance to the captain. Problem is they have not been checking Dhoni for a long time. If the selectors give Dhoni a side of Rahane Mukund Pujara Sachin Kohli Rohit Ashwin Zaheer Ojha and Umesh, backed up by Ishant Badri Mishra and Tiwary for example. Thats limits Dhoni's crappy selection policy.

[don_corleone840]

actually.. i think in tests saha or some new guy can play but in odis and t20 i cant see any one as good as him... about captain.. person who will replace him does not need to become captain..from time being in test give it to zack or go smith way and give it to kohli im tired of his captaincy in tests.. in odis only his selection makes me :wall:

saha look like a tailhander to me.Dhoni is best wk/batsman we have in test cricket.

[CG]

saha look like a tailhainder to me.Dhoni is best wk/batsman we have in test cricket.

If saha looked like a tailender to you then dhoni should like chris martin in your eyes.

[CG]

that fasto zaheer can barely get through his overs. You want to hand him captaincy? As for Saha in tests. I personally have never rated Saha. D KArtick is somebody i do rate but his form in the domestics has dropped. Uttappa and maybe Parthiv Patel are probably the only ones who can replace Dhoni in the T20s. But they are both **** keepers. It would be like India playing their version of K Akmaal. As i have mentioned before, selectors need to make the choices for Dhoni in many cases. Give him such a squad that it ensures that sane selections can be made. There is not much Dhoni can do if the best 15 in terms of form youth etc are selected. Look at the test v NZ. Why would you select Raina who Dhoni likes to play? Why not select a proper batsman or tell Dhoni that he has to pick people from the remaining sqaud which meant Badri would play? The captain is only as affective as the people given to him. The selectors act as a check and balance to the captain. Problem is they have not been checking Dhoni for a long time.

Captain of csk,India has no say in selection.:hysterical:.why have chawla,jadejas,rp singhs got selected.

[don_corleone840]

If saha looked like a tailender to you then dhoni should like chris martin in your eyes.

saha has an average of 18 in test cricket.

[Sean Bradley]

single handedly by yuvi and raina? :omg: wht abt zack,tendulkar,gambhir,in final dhoni himself ..ashwin ? :hmmm:

Yuvi performed consistently throughout the worldcup and if not for rainas efforts in the quarters and the semis, it was pretty much curtains for us, everyone were playing around yuvi in particular, lets not talk about bowlers here, what was dhonis contribution baring final where he promoted himself up the order when the tide was in our favour on a flat wankhede deck, i forsee it as dhoni stealing yuvis thunder in the final, why dint he promote himself up the order in any of the World T20 matches, esp against south africa? when the need of the hour was to score big and score quick, why dint he promote himself up when we needed 100 odd runs against windies with 7 wickets in hands in a test match?? The point is, dhoni is scared to take risk these days, and it is pretty much evident.

[G_B_]

Captain of csk' date='India has no say in selection.:hysterical:.why have chawla,jadejas,rp singhs got selected.[/quote'] selections are made by consensus or a majority vote. Dhoni can easily be out voted. Problem is majority of those have not been making the call.

[CG]

If you expect a #7 batsman to make up for top order batsmen then I guess you yourself know where the team stands.

It is not that only you also have to stand up.You have to perform when others fail .there were plenty of chances for dhoni to save the situation or build a patnership with a regular batsman which he failed to do.