What is MS Dhoni's biggest achievement as captain?

[The Outsider]

At Lords' date=' India were 188 runs behind England's first innings, so no way we were going to win that match after conceding such a big lead.[/quote'] No team in cricket has won after conceding a bigger lead? Even India has done it. The bigger picture is England were leading by 250 runs with half their side out. Haven't you ever seen the last five wickets fall for 50-70 runs. Would you have not backed the number 1 team with Tendulkar, Dravid, and Laxman to get 300-320 runs on what was a decent wicket?

[adi B]

Absolutely agree. We could not even get them out despite having McGrath-Warne in our team.

so now one needs warn-mcgrath to stop the flow of runs or get broad out?

[Number]

Agree. Dhoni is a poor overseas captain because he does not know how handle pacers and extract the best out of them. He can do it with spinners but he has little clue in terms of using pacers and the reason we do not have a decent fast bowling pool as whenever a bowler gets injured' date=' we have to think where the next bowler will come from.[/quote'] He is not proactive. In the same tour, in the Perth game when Umesh and Zaheer started bowling well, he captained better and kept really good fielding for both of them. But when things were not going his way he gave up too early.

[rkt.india]

No team in cricket has won after conceding a bigger lead? Even India has done it. The bigger picture is England were leading by 250 runs with half their side out. Haven't you ever seen the last five wickets fall for 50-70 runs. Would you have not backed the number 1 team with Tendulkar' date=' Dravid, and Laxman to get 300-320 runs on what was a decent wicket?[/quote'] Yes. It could have happened but England batted deep and you were never sure. Though, I myself was surprised seeing Ishant not bowling. When you are in rhythm and just took wickets, you dont think anything but bowl, bowl and bowl and that breather to Ishant was a big tactical mistake. I am not fond of Dhoni in terms of his overseas captaincy but one bowler short was the bigger reason he had to hold Ishant back who had already bowled 32 overs in the first innings and more in second.

[rkt.india]

so now one needs warn-mcgrath to stop the flow of runs or get broad out?

So whose responsibility, it is to get the batsman out, bowler or captain should go and bowl for the bowlers. Our bowling was not good enough as simple as that.

[Laaloo]

rkt How did you like the kaptaan's strategy of keep giving Raina overs to bowl against ABD at Centurion? It looked as if he couldnt wait for SAF to declare and get back to the dressing room. Raina gave up 77 runs in 7 overs

[The Outsider]

Yes. It could have happened but England batted deep and you were never sure. Though, I myself was surprised seeing Ishant not bowling. When you are in rhythm and just took wickets, you dont think anything but bowl, bowl and bowl and that breather to Ishant was a big tactical mistake. I am not fond of Dhoni in terms of his overseas captaincy but one bowler short was the bigger reason he had to hold Ishant back who had already bowled 32 overs in the first innings and more in second.

Of course, no one can be sure. But when you are given an opening in a test match, the job of a captain is to latch on to it. Another 2 wickets in a 4-5 over spell after lunch and England would have been 80-7. From there even Bhajji might have been able to wrap them up. First test of the series is crucial and that Zaheer was injured means that Ishant should have been forced to take more responsibility, not think about the upcoming 3 tests. And it's not people were expecting something unreasonable - bowling 4-5 overs after a 45 minute break should not be an issue for any bowler.

[adi B]

So whose responsibility' date=' it is to get the batsman out, bowler or captain should go and bowl for the bowlers. Our bowling was not good enough as simple as that.[/quote'] agree our bowling aint that good but with 3 decent bowlers u can choke the run flow particularly against a tailender...he could have set a 7-2 field or 8-1 maybe and knowing england were under pressure they would have committed a mistake to go for quick runs.. now bowling -ve lines with long on,sweeper cover on boundary u are releasing the pressure..captain has to be a lot more pro active

[Laaloo]

Agree. Dhoni is a poor overseas captain because he does not know how handle pacers and extract the best out of them. He can do it with spinners but he has little clue in terms of using pacers and the reason we do not have a decent fast bowling pool as whenever a bowler gets injured' date=' we have to think where the next bowler will come from.[/quote'] you can thank Dhoni for that. Asking for outright rank turners from day and making the fast bowlers take the shine off the ball. If he had asked for pitches like Mumbai, Mohali more often, our pace bowlers would fare better. Dhoni's going to destroy our chances in South Africa unless ofcourse we get some sort of brilliance from our fast bowlers.

[The Outsider]

so now one needs warn-mcgrath to stop the flow of runs or get broad out?

The funny bit is kaptaan tries to put fields to stop the flow of runs and ends up getting smashed anyways while reducing the possibility of taking wickets on the way. :facepalm:

[adi B]

rkt How did you like the kaptaan's strategy of keep giving Raina overs to bowl against ABD at Centurion? It looked as if he couldnt wait for SAF to declare and get back to the dressing room. Raina gave up 77 runs in 7 overs

in simple term just flowing with the emotions

[moniker]

Dhoni's biggest achievement - Surviving without a life jacket.

[adi B]

srini mama his life jacket

[Laaloo]

Dhoni's biggest achievement - Surviving without a life jacket.

Not that hard when you have life insurance with Rhiti sports

[CG]

Promoting Yuvi in the batting order despite him being in poor form. Successfully managing Yuvi as front line spinner throughout the tournament. Promoting himself ahead of Yuvi in final despite his poor form and Yuvi's form Picking Raina for knock out despite poor form and just playing a single league game for crucial Knock outs. Picking Nehra ahead of Ashwin for the Semi final. Yep it has nothing to with captaincy we won the world cup despite having one of the weakest bowling attacks.

and u forget his backing of bhajji over ashwin. shocking decison of Picking chawla for no reason vs eng:cantstop: . Failing to Avert batting Collapses Bringing sreesanth on when there was no need and spinners were going well in final. Giving Nehra the final over vs SA .:hysterical: His own personal form in wc Backing nehra even though he was hammered in sa,That guy did not play domestic matches and used sa as practice matches. There are as many cons as pros.

[SLICKR392]

CG has joined in as well. :giggle:

[BeautifulGame]

Promote where? Yuvraj batted at 4,5, and 6. That's where he normally bats anyway.

Like promote to no.4 ahead of Kohli in the match against England which resulted in Yuvi gaining form.Yuvi was in poor form in the series and that move changed Yuvi the batsmen for the whole tournament.It was obviously a great captain's move.

LOL! Yuvraj bowled brilliantly, so was able to operate as a front line bowler. When he was getting b!tchslapped in the recent matches where did Dhoni's management go? Company Garden?

Yuvi bowled brilliantly because he was managed brilliantly by Dhoni.He showed him huge confidence despite being only 5th choice bowler.

Nothing to say that Yuvraj would not have scored given the form he was in. Anyways, keeping a left-right combination is not exactly stuff of genius that it needs mentioning.

And everything to say he would have struggled against Murali with his weakness against spin.It was a great stroke of captaincy and great captains of the past like Imran Khan to Ian Chappel has praised it.

Obvious move. Pathan had done jack the entire tournament. It would have been dumb to keep playing him.

No it isnt.He dropped a player just scored a century against SA in SA (only centurian of the series) for a player who was in poor form.Just in the last League game against WI Yusuf performed better than Raina with both bat and ball.So again it was great captaincy by Dhoni,

Obvious move again. Against Pakistan it makes sense to play the extra seam bowler.

Again it wasnt obvious. He dropped a bowler who had a great game against Aus to replace him with a Nehra , who was villified throughout the indian media for the loss against SA and low on confidence. Yet he picked a pace bowler who was completely down on confidence in the biggest pressure game and again that proved a master stroke. So its obviously clear the main reason we won the world is because of Dhoni's captaincy

[BeautifulGame]

and u forget his backing of bhajji over ashwin. shocking decison of Picking chawla for no reason vs eng:cantstop: . Failing to Avert batting Collapses Bringing sreesanth on when there was no need and spinners were going well in final. Giving Nehra the final over vs SA .:hysterical: His own personal form in wc Backing nehra even though he was hammered in sa,That guy did not play domestic matches and used sa as practice matches. There are as many cons as pros.

Yep obviously losing the meaningless league matches against SA is what matters not winning the knock outs and world cup :hysterical: He was an intelligent captain who rotated his team in league phases and picked the best XI when it mattered. But but obviously u prefer a captain who was afraid of batting first in world cup final despite winning the toss and cost us winning a world cup because of his cowardness.

[The Outsider]

So its obviously clear the main reason we won the world is because of Dhoni's captaincy

Not main, I think it's pretty clear that Dhoni is the only reason India won the World Cup.

[SLICKR392]

What are you talking about? Checked on cricinfo. Lunch was taken at 67/5 after 31 overs with Ishant having bowled the 30th over. First over after lunch was given to Raina. Ishant was not brought in till the 42nd over when the score was 104/5. He struck immediately in the 44th over. After Broad slogged a couple of fours, Dhoni immediately brought in Bhajji. The pitch was a first day green top and just because a tailender slogs you for a couple of boundaries doesn't mean a spinner is going to be effective on that wicket. England were ahead by 180 at that time. The lead had grown to 250+ by the time they got rid of Bell. That's a huge difference, not to mention the momentum change such things can bring about.

Hmm? Is this the match you are talking about? http://www.espncricinfo.com/england-v-india-2011/engine/match/474473.html If yes, then the lunch was taken on the 26th over and England were 68/2 with Strauss and KP batting. Again, he is not a tail ender by any means on those conditions. England literally had no tail enders in that match apart from Anderson. Broad hit 10 runs of 7 balls of Harbhajjan and his wicket was picked by Harbhajjan as well. Wonder how you could blame that move which got us a wicket of that partnership between Broad and Swann & costed us only 10 runs (as far Broad's innings was concerned). Wicket of Bell costed us 32 runs and the rest were scored by Morgan who was going at a good pace post lunch. Even though there was a collapse after that 180 lead, they would have managed 50-80 runs with that line up and we were bowled out under 160. So again, it doesn't make any difference at the end of it.

Bringing them in to claim that Dhoni's poor captaincy had no impact on the results is a classic case of throwing red herrings.

That goes the other way as well. When you claim on every thread that Dhoni is the sole reason to all these oversees debacles then its pretty obvious people will counter it with our poor batting & bowling oversees. When our bowlers give away over 5 per over in a match and you are supposed to have 1-2 fielders outside the circle with a bunch of slips and few close in fielders then its utter stupidity. Bad bowling forces you to change fields. Poor batting and bowling does come in the radar when you argue about captaincy.