BackCaptaincy conundrum
After a long sequence of losses, Dhoni's captaincy is under the scanner. But within the debate are other questionshis place in the team and his potential successor
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Mahendra Singh Dhoni is a brave man. After England went up 2-1 in the recent Test series at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, the Indian skipper remained defiant. “The easiest thing for me to say right now is, ‘I quit captaincy’ and be a part of the side. But that’s like running away from the responsibility."
In the fourth Test at Nagpur, a must-win game for India, Dhoni was quite hands-on in his approach, perhaps more than he has been in the last year. He was playing with four spinners on a slow track and was quick with his bowling changes. With Yuvraj Singh and Zaheer Khan dropped, he had fresh players on the field and as a unit, it reflected in India’s fielding. He was even instrumental with the bat, scoring 99 runs in the first innings, and his run-out was deemed “a turning point" by English batsman Jonathan Trott, as England drew the match and earned a series win in India after 27 years.
“Wankhede was the best wicket of the series," Dhoni said later. “You always want something in it for the bowlers, as well as for the batsmen to play their shots. Indian cricketers have to prepare for bounce, be it at home or overseas."
As much as it should have been about the action, pitches in this four-Test series took centre stage. Dhoni’s demands for wickets that took turn from Day 1 raised much debate. “During our days, we hoped the wicket would turn," said former India captain Nari Contractor in the build-up to the third Test. “But we never instructed the curator to prepare a particular type of wicket. We could never even think of making such demands."
It is a double-edged sword—on one hand, a captain wants aid for his bowlers who are not good enough to take 20 wickets on flat tracks (Kolkata and Nagpur), unless the opposition collapses by itself (England in Ahmedabad). On the other, there is always the chance that his bowlers still won’t make good use of the conditions and his batsmen will fall prey to the opposition, as was evident from the second Test in Mumbai.
A complex situation
The captain’s world is a convoluted one. It is a thankless job, where he has to think about winning first, and then ponder over who the best players are who could do that for him. He also has his own game to worry about.
The fearless Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi taught his mates how to get over their mental blocks against foreign teams. Kapil Dev’s side mirrored his maverick abilities whereas Sachin Tendulkar’s team never got out of its shell given his discomfort with responsibility. Sourav Ganguly gave heart to his young boys and is responsible for all the attitude over the past decade.
In that light, Dhoni—with his non-existent backlift and limited technique, both in front and behind the stumps—was pummelled by Test cricket’s demands, particularly overseas. Unable to adjust his own game to suit different requirements of international cricket, he also became a reactive leader, far more often than was necessary. This has proven detrimental to his side’s benefits. His field settings in England and Australia were questioned and he got away because his bowlers lacked discipline.
It was a similar story in Mumbai as well, when Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen scripted a series-winning partnership. In Kolkata on Day 2, and in Nagpur on Day 1 and 4, the game was allowed to drift away. With an over-reliance on instinct, and India’s long-impending transition, it dawned that his resources weren’t good enough to pose a challenge. The demand for helpful pitches is ample reflection of this fact.
Does it also strike a blow to his claim of “staying in the team"? His Test average looks healthy overall, at 38.06 from 73 Test matches. When you segregate it into home and overseas, there isn’t an abnormal deviation. He has scored at 43.65 in Test matches in India, while his average away from home is 33.48. These are generous figures for any Test cricketer, leave alone a wicketkeeper.
However there is a big divergence in the two away tours after the One Day International (ODI) World Cup win in 2011. In England, he scored at 31.42 in four Tests. That subsequently fell to 20.40 in three matches Down Under.
Best man for the job?
There is a school of thought that argues in his favour, having led India to a Test ranking high of No. 1 in 2009 and then the World Cup triumph after an exasperating wait of 28 years. Even so, the team has been on a downward spiral ever since, one which now seems to have gone out of control. If history has told us anything, Indian captains have been sacked for far less.
Ajit Wadekar had led India to victory in three successive Test series, two of them overseas in England and West Indies. Yet he found himself out of the job after a solitary overseas loss in 1974. Despite winning the 1983 World Cup, Kapil Dev was booted out when India lost the Test series to West Indies that winter. Mohammad Azharuddin was shown the door after he failed to bring home the World Cup in 1996. His successor, Tendulkar, was no longer the captain after India’s dismal show in Australia in 1999.
“What has Dhoni done in the past one year after winning the World Cup?" said former selector/cricketer Mohinder Amarnath on news channels in the lead-up to the Nagpur Test. “Who is Dhoni to decide about his future as a player? It is the selectors’ job to decide whether he will be in the team or not."
Several people believe Amarnath’s revelation on national television should have come when he was dropped from the selection panel in September and not ahead of a must-win Test. Irrespective of his timing though, it questions the practices in The Board of Control For Cricket In India (BCCI) and makes Dhoni’s position as captain untenable. The other way to look at this situation is who else can be made Test captain?
The next best choice
Amarnath made it known that Virender Sehwag would have got the job, had selectors been allowed to have their way in February. It echoes Ganguly’s thoughts, who, after the 4-0 loss in Australia in December 2011-January, said this on a prominent news channel: “Sehwag is a certainty for any Indian Tests. Look at Dhoni’s performance. He will not be picked for a Test team."
The problem lies here. A couple of months later, in the build-up to a Mumbai Indians versus Pune Warriors match in the 2012 IPL, he thought Harbhajan Singh would one day make a fine captain on the international stage. After Gautam Gambhir led Kolkata Knight Riders to their maiden IPL triumph, a couple of weeks later, Ganguly told a Bengali news channel that “Gambhir gives an option to the selectors, for he is an obvious choice for the Test format". Intermittently, he has also mentioned Virat Kohli as the future of Indian cricket, subtly hinting at his leadership qualities.
Ganguly is not alone—several “experts" have hinted at several names as possible replacements for Dhoni as captain.
Sehwag’s form, regardless of format, has been a concern for long. Gambhir’s solitary Twenty20 success doesn’t move him into Test contention and his own game has been under the microscope as well. Perhaps Ganguly was playing to the gallery in suggesting Kohli and since Singh was a protégé of the former Indian captain, his Harbhajan-remarks can be considered void.
But then you consider how India failed to chase a paltry target in Dominica last summer against West Indies, their rousing 8-0 (over two series) debacle overseas, failure to make the semi-finals of the Twenty20 World Cup in Sri Lanka in October, and this embarrassing 2-1 loss to England at home. Suddenly, this isn’t about whether Sehwag, Gambhir, Kohli, Singh or anyone else ought to be made Indian captain.
It is now, foremost, about whether Dhoni has run his course.
Chetan Narula is the author of Skipper: A Definitive Account of India’s Greatest Captains.
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