Dhoni - Greatest Indian captain

[JaFanatic]

Shoaib malik is a much better captain than dhoni.

you forgot hafeez misbah imran afridi wasim inzy and others :giggle:

[Fontaine]

++ He is an excellent LOI captain. There is no denying that. Dhoni is excellent at putting pressure on batsmen via scoring rates at LOI games. I am just not sold on his captaincy accumen when it involves getting set batsmen out when they can bat for 2 days, ie, Test cricket.

Well, it's all relative. Dhoni as a test captain can let things drift at times and sets defensive fields, but so do a lot of modern captains. I wouldn't say Dhoni is a better or worse test captain than Ganguly, just a different captain playing in a completely different competitive era. But he is right up there as one of the best we've had and that's good enough in my opinion rather than arguing over which one is "better."

[maniac]

DHoni is probably the greatest 50 over format captain ever....period. Tests and T20's not so much

[saneindian]

ODIs - the best Indian captain. Tests, long way to go.

[Austin 3:!6]

Dhoni is the greatest ever captain and ODI cricketer from Subcontinent.

[Sarkar]

Dhoni is the greatest ever captain and ODI cricketer from Subcontinent.

Yes I agree Dhoni the greatest captain of the subcontinent about time ICC place him in legends of cricket

[Bumper]

++ He is an excellent LOI captain. There is no denying that. Dhoni is excellent at putting pressure on batsmen via scoring rates at LOI games. I am just not sold on his captaincy accumen when it involves getting set batsmen out when they can bat for 2 days, ie, Test cricket.

You kinda answered your qn yourself. Its easy to go, wait a minute this guy just lost 0-8 on the road in tests, how can he be a great captain ? Fair question. To purchase wickets in test cricket, you need to exert pressure on opponent batsmen. In LOIs there is a scoring rate factor you could use to exert that pressure, but in test cricket there is no rush to score fast. So exerting pressure on quality batsmen on neutral surfaces, with a cr@p bowling attack with smallish totals is almost impossible. Dhoni is guilty of spreading the field at times (eg: last wicket partnership in the Melbourne test), but his problem in general was that he ran into superior batsmen with a weak bowling attack and less than par totals to back him. In the two years preceding the slide, when the batsmen & bowlers were in form he was a different captain, he could marshall his troops a lot better. So i'd keep this in perspective when we evaluate him as a test captain. As for the 0-8 mauling, at best a better captain would have put up a good fight, but still lost both the test series against England and Australia, as we lacked the quality to compete either teams on the road.

[KFC_Zinger]

Shoaib malik is a much better captain than dhoni.

Malik saab is not even a captain at home :) :giggle::giggle:

[Sidhoni]

Then you should not be taking part in this discussion. As i said' date=' success is almost 95-98% determined by non-captaincy issues, the captain's input is probably 2-5% of the outcome, if that. [b']A monkey on autopilot will have a better record as WI captain of the 80s than Jesus himself captaining the Bangle boys. There is little or no correlation between being the greatest captain and the most successful captain, so I'd say those who want to argue 'better record = better captain', kindly exit the thread.

So the team filled with youngsters not having played before in England is being compared to WI side of the 80s. :hatsoff:

[Sidhoni]

Malik saab is not even a captain at home :) :giggle::giggle:

:hysterical:

[Sidhoni]

ODIs - the best Indian captain. Tests, long way to go.

Corrected

[Deleted_User_1]

The next 1.5 years will tell us if the baggage carried by aging veteran past their prime refusing to leave was the reason we got shellacked in the overseas series after WC 2011. I think so, but we will see. Test cricket overseas is a completely different animal.

[flamy]

++ He is an excellent LOI captain. There is no denying that. Dhoni is excellent at putting pressure on batsmen via scoring rates at LOI games. I am just not sold on his captaincy accumen when it involves getting set batsmen out when they can bat for 2 days, ie, Test cricket.

I appreciate your argument about his Test captaincy and agree with it for the most part. I have a feeling though that his Test captaincy will be improving in the future now. With the 2011 WC Final, Dhoni consummated his original purpose. Which is why this was followed by a lackluster period. He was simply exhausted, spiritually. I saw the fire and the drive extinguish into a calm and extremely, well-deserved repose after that six. That moment was it for him. The whitewashes and the IPL scandal have galvanized him. I can see the fire in his eyes again. And, the way he was jumping around after winning shows how much he wanted this. Better things are coming. :icflove: