This article nails Dhoni's current state - flaws and all

[sandeep]

http://www.espncricinfo.com/west-indies-v-india-2016/content/story/1052023.html

 

He's still a serviceable player, but definitely on the downhill side of his career. Those who watched that 1st T20 would have noticed that apart from those big sixes that he hit off of balls that were in his arc, he had trouble middling the ball when trying to hit forcing shots that were not in his zone.  That is daylights away from Dhoni of old.  Probably a result of a slight decline in hand-eye co-ordination.  Still, he lost us the T20 not because of any physical issues, a mental one - being too predictable with his approach.  If he had tried to hit another big shot after that first ball instead of waiting for the last one, we probably win it.  

I'm not one of the Dhoni bashers on this forum, but the time may have come for India to audition his replacement in T20s.  I just hope young Samson is 70% of the wicket-keeper that Dhoni is.  Honestly the rest of the 'keeper "prospects" are just names to give fanboys pant-gasms.  

[velu]

35 year old dhoni cant be same as 27yr old dhoni .. but he is still invaluable player

 

i think ojha is good .. in aus a tour he scored heavily and he is a natural hitter ..

we can try him 

[sandeep]

17 minutes ago, velu said:

35 year old dhoni cant be same as 27yr old dhoni .. but he is still invaluable player

 

i think ojha is good .. in aus a tour he scored heavily and he is a natural hitter ..

we can try him 

From what I have seen of Ojha's batting, he's not going to cut it at the international level in LOI batting.  

[express bowling]

It is important to groom replacements with the senior players still playing.  It is not so easy in test matches as every game is super important. But, in ODIs and T20Is, it is possible in low importance bilateral series like the one we played in Florida.

 

It will be very difficult to replace a batsman of Dhoni's calibre in  ODIs.  Samson is perhaps the front-runner as he is the batsman-keeper in our A team now. He played a very good knock of 87 while chasing  320+ in Australia today and a 50+ in an earlier game, but he is inconsistent with the bat and his keeping could do with some improvement.

 

As Dhoni is the captain, he will play almost all LOI games but , it would be nice if he plays as a batsman at no.4 in some less-important matches and Samson is the wicket-keeper + no.6 batsman.  Pant is a big talent but is very raw as of now. The next List A and FC season will give some idea about him. Naman Ojha is seen as a talented but irresponsible batsman. Dhoni was the epitome of responsibility with the bat in his heydays and Naman is the opposite. I don' t think he can be a long-term solution but he too should be tried as a keeper-batsman with Dhoni in the team.

 

I know that what I am suggesting has very little chance of happening practically but it would have been very effective if this were done.

Edited August 30, 2016 by express bowling

[sandeep]

Don't know why people are seduced by Pant.  Saw him bat in u-19 and IPL a bit.  And is a fat leg-side slogger bully.  A young hindu Sharjeel Khan in the making.  

[Vilander]

1 hour ago, sandeep said:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/west-indies-v-india-2016/content/story/1052023.html

 

He's still a serviceable player, but definitely on the downhill side of his career. Those who watched that 1st T20 would have noticed that apart from those big sixes that he hit off of balls that were in his arc, he had trouble middling the ball when trying to hit forcing shots that were not in his zone.  That is daylights away from Dhoni of old.  Probably a result of a slight decline in hand-eye co-ordination.  Still, he lost us the T20 not because of any physical issues, a mental one - being too predictable with his approach.  If he had tried to hit another big shot after that first ball instead of waiting for the last one, we probably win it.  

I'm not one of the Dhoni bashers on this forum, but the time may have come for India to audition his replacement in T20s.  I just hope young Samson is 70% of the wicket-keeper that Dhoni is.  Honestly the rest of the 'keeper "prospects" are just names to give fanboys pant-gasms.  

43(25) balls even in the context of the game is not 'lost the game for us' score honestly. He played the 18th over poorly could have gone after bravo a bit more but it was clever bolwing and field placement by Bravo. 20th over yes at hindsight he should have got 8 from 6 but the last ball too he did not expect it to get the outside edge, maybe he should have hit out the early part of the over.  He was outplayed by Bravo.

[Bigg Brother]

Only options available are Samson & Ojha as they are getting long run for A games..Pant is brilliant for his age and has a long way before being selected for National team.

[sandeep]

4 minutes ago, Vilander said:

43(25) balls even in the context of the game is not 'lost the game for us' score honestly. He played the 18th over poorly could have gone after bravo a bit more but it was clever bolwing and field placement by Bravo. 20th over yes at hindsight he should have got 8 from 6 but the last ball too he did not expect it to get the outside edge, maybe he should have hit out the early part of the over.  He was outplayed by Bravo.

An international batsman who bats above #8, batting with a 50-ball centurion at the other end, is expected to finish a T20 game with 8 required off the last over.  Dhoni didn't and he played 4 of the last 6.  Sorry, but he lost us the game at that point.  Not being harsh, I don't think he should be dropped or anything.  But he owns this loss.  There were 'n' ways to get the runs, he chose the "Dhoni" ODI method and Bravo was able to counter it due to its predictability and Dhoni's fading reflexes.  

[express bowling]

5 minutes ago, Bigg Brother said:

Only options available are Samson & Ojha as they are getting long run for A games..Pant is brilliant for his age and has a long way before being selected for National team.

For our A team, I think Naman is playing the 4 day games only and Samson the one day games.

[Vilander]

Just now, sandeep said:

An international batsman who bats above #8, batting with a 50-ball centurion at the other end, is expected to finish a T20 game with 8 required off the last over.  Dhoni didn't and he played 4 of the last 6.  Sorry, but he lost us the game at that point.  Not being harsh, I don't think he should be dropped or anything.  But he owns this loss.  There were 'n' ways to get the runs, he chose the "Dhoni" ODI method and Bravo was able to counter it due to its predictability and Dhoni's fading reflexes.  

Spoken like a true fan i should say. 50 ball centurion faced two balls in the final over too then, Its a bit more difficult out in the middle seems like, Dhoni played a good hand, just that Bravo was better on the day.

[sandeep]

4 minutes ago, Vilander said:

Spoken like a true fan i should say. 50 ball centurion faced two balls in the final over too then, Its a bit more difficult out in the middle seems like, Dhoni played a good hand, just that Bravo was better on the day.

And I can counter with "spoken like a one-eyed defender".  We can agree to disagree.  

 

Look, if you are able to be objective, you should see that it wasn't as if Bravo bowled magic balls and jaffas that over.  Sure he didnt give any freebies or hit-me balls.  But you shouldn't need those to get 8 off 6.  Its not as if Dhoni had just come to the crease.  Why do you have a problem in accepting that Dhoni failed to get a doable job done?  It won't deny his greatness.  Or his still-valuable utility to the team.  

[Vilander]

14 minutes ago, sandeep said:

And I can counter with "spoken like a one-eyed defender".  We can agree to disagree.  

 

Look, if you are able to be objective, you should see that it wasn't as if Bravo bowled magic balls and jaffas that over.  Sure he didnt give any freebies or hit-me balls.  But you shouldn't need those to get 8 off 6.  Its not as if Dhoni had just come to the crease.  Why do you have a problem in accepting that Dhoni failed to get a doable job done?  It won't deny his greatness.  Or his still-valuable utility to the team.  

sure why not we disagree but you dont need to insult someone who disagrees with you its pretty immature. What one eyed ?

 

But the OP( in star contrast to the good article quoted) i think its a bit too harsh on Dhoni. It does two things, first denies the fact that Dhoni actually batted well and the fact that neither Dhoni nor Rahul could actually put Bravo away the way they put away others. Bravo has been doing this last over heroics from a long time, if you remember the last over to Yuvraj in an ODI a few years back, why take it away from him ?

[sandeep]

8 minutes ago, Vilander said:

sure why not we disagree but you dont need to insult someone who disagrees with you its pretty immature. What one eyed ?

 

But the OP( in star contrast to the good article quoted) i think its a bit too harsh on Dhoni. It does two things, first denies the fact that Dhoni actually batted well and the fact that neither Dhoni nor Rahul could actually put Bravo away the way they put away others. Bravo has been doing this last over heroics from a long time, if you remember the last over to Yuvraj in an ODI a few years back, why take it away from him ?

Don't mean to insult at all.  Don't take it that way.

 

I disagree with you that Dhoni batted that well.  Watch the innings, he was nowhere near as fluent as Rahul was on the other end.  Way too many edges and mishits.  43(25) can be very misleading because he slugged 3 sixes that were off of length balls, with the breeze helping as well.  He didnt need the breeze so leave that aside.  He batted decent and supported Rahul well.   Scorecards can be misleading - you have to look at how he was connecting the ball out there.  And Dhoni was nowhere near his best.  Now I understand that you can't expect 2006 level heroics from him every game, and that's fine.  He is still a very capable player.  

 

And not to take anything away from Bravo, he bowled well, but again, nothing unplayable from him.  He just didn't give any freebies.  He didn't win it, Dhoni lost it.  Sounds harsh, but I'm sure Dhoni himself knows it as well.  Even a Zimbabwe batsman would expect himself to get 8 off of 6 on that wicket, in that situation.  Even with Dale steyn bowling.   The issue was that Dhoni was banking on the bowler to blink, instead of being pro-active and looking for that double or boundary, and Bravo didn't blink.  That's a miscalculation on Dhoni's part and that led to him putting all the chips on the last ball and he failed to execute at that point.  But it shouldn't have gone to that point.  This is a point the article makes very cogently, albeit guardedly; fearing the obvious backlash from the legions of MS admirers out there.  Note: I count myself as one of them.  

 

Gambhir once publicly called him out on the same approach in an ODI in Australia.  Its needlessly risky.  And to quote a more recent example, Dhoni tried the same approach and a young Rabada was able to get him to fail in home conditions.  

 

Objective is not to beat up on Dhoni.  But I can call it as I see it - Dhoni's strategy was flawed in the last over, which led to everything coming down needlessly to that last ball.  And then his hands and eyes couldn't get the job done against Bravo on that last ball, which was by no means unhittable.  

 

 

[putrevus]

Dhoni never had any range of strokes. He was always a limited played when it came to playing big shot and there is reason why he has never made T20  half century.

 

His strength was hitting down the wicket and bowlers are very much aware of it. At this stage of his career his strengths lie in running singles hard and hitting occasional boundary.These things work in Odis but not in T20s.

 

He never was a good T20 player and he has lost many t20s with his sluggish hitting, T20 against NZ comes into mind where if I am not wrong  less than 6 runs were in final and our kaptaan bungled it.

Edited August 30, 2016 by putrevus

[The Realist]

4 hours ago, putrevus said:

Dhoni never had any range of strokes. He was always a limited played when it came to playing big shot and there is reason why he has never made T20  half century.

 

His strength was hitting down the wicket and bowlers are very much aware of it. At this stage of his career his strengths lie in running singles hard and hitting occasional boundary.These things work in Odis but not in T20s.

 

He never was a good T20 player and he has lost many t20s with his sluggish hitting, T20 against NZ comes into mind where if I am not wrong  less than 6 runs were in final and our kaptaan bungled it.

Bingo.

 

Dhoni has never been a particularly good T20 player - just check his stats they are mediocre at best. His scoring arc is very limited, he cannot place or time shots and his old strength of brute power has diminished significantly as he has got older.

 

Struggle to understand why he still plays in the format in which he has the poorest career stats and one which favours younger and more innovative players. 

 

[MCcricket]

Dhoni is done as a player as well only selectors can't see it, get in guys like Pandey, Pandya, Sarfaraz n they will win the games that Dhoni has been costing us last 3 years 

 

[rkt.india]

13 hours ago, sandeep said:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/west-indies-v-india-2016/content/story/1052023.html

 

He's still a serviceable player, but definitely on the downhill side of his career. Those who watched that 1st T20 would have noticed that apart from those big sixes that he hit off of balls that were in his arc, he had trouble middling the ball when trying to hit forcing shots that were not in his zone.  That is daylights away from Dhoni of old.  Probably a result of a slight decline in hand-eye co-ordination.  Still, he lost us the T20 not because of any physical issues, a mental one - being too predictable with his approach.  If he had tried to hit another big shot after that first ball instead of waiting for the last one, we probably win it.  

I'm not one of the Dhoni bashers on this forum, but the time may have come for India to audition his replacement in T20s.  I just hope young Samson is 70% of the wicket-keeper that Dhoni is.  Honestly the rest of the 'keeper "prospects" are just names to give fanboys pant-gasms.  

Dhoni isnt not evena benchmark in T20 cricket. Dont think even Saha would do any worse than him in international T20s. Saha even has a 100 in IPL. His international T20 SR hovered around 115 most of his career and only now it crossed 120 mark.

[rkt.india]

13 hours ago, Viper said:

Problem is no WK Batsmen  is ready to step in.. 

 

Defo not on Pant hype like some people here and samson was a disappointment. Expected  to debut long time back.  He lost his way in the middle.

Samson is just 21. Dhoni debuted for India at 23-24. You are talking like Dhoni is some great T20 player. Dont thinkg Samson or Pant will do any worse than what Dhoni has done in international T20s. Even Saha wont do worse than him.

[TheWall]

Unfortunately there is no proper replacement for Dhoni, especially when it comes to wicket keeping.. dhoni is brilliant...

Time is running out...

[rkt.india]

23 minutes ago, TheWall said:

Unfortunately there is no proper replacement for Dhoni, especially when it comes to wicket keeping.. dhoni is brilliant...

Time is running out...

Not many debutantes will be as good as Dhoni now is as keeper against spin. Neither Dhoni himself was as good when he debuted as he is now. SO why expecting a readymade Dhoni like keeper. Also, Dhoni has been an average keeper against pace. He isnt the best keeper world has ever seen. As a batsman, he has been great in ODIs player but very poor in T20s.