In India cricket is not just a game, it has attained the stature of religion and to imagine a fate like what happened recently at the T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka can be termed as a ‘nightmare’.

Not many would have thought it in their wildest dream that India’s campaign would come to such an abrupt end. But it did happen and India failed to go past the Super Eights stages yet again.

India failed to match up to the standards and all the fingers point to skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Dhoni who led the men in blue to 2011 World Cup triumph, has since then failed as a leader and India from being a potent force in the world cricket has now become a fragile opponent.

Dhoni’s captaincy in the last year has drawn widespread criticism and the recent debacle just adds onto it. ‘Captain Cool’ as he is known, rose to prominence after guiding India to victory in the inaugural T20 World Cup in 2007 with a relatively young team. Since then he has matured as a player and from being an aggressive middle-order batsmen became a sensible captain.

He has led India to glory many times and also failed on occasions but that hardly made anyone ponder about his inability to lead the side. But then in the past one year his captaincy has looked jaded and the charisma he possessed somewhat seems to have got diffused.

Well it will be unfair to say that Dhoni has never been a good captain and all the success that he achieved was due to luck, but how things stand now it will not be harsh to stay that he has lost his sheen.

The T20 debacle somewhere down the lane indicates that Dhoni’s days at the helm of affairs are over. He made a complete mess of his captaincy and his decision-making in Sri Lanka has drawn flak. For a captain of such high profile Indian Team, two series whitewash is enough to fall from the grace but the administrators and selectors continued to levy their patronage on him.

It is for the third time in a row that India has failed to make it to the semis of the T20 World Cup and all that Dhoni could do was to stand with head held high defending his players and blaming the rain for their ouster.

It is indeed very surprising to see that once a brave captain now is veiling behind excuses to hide his mediocrity. There has been a massive change in his fearless attitude and it now reflects pessimism.

Before the big match against South Africa, Dhoni after he lost the toss was heard saying that the toss was important but not anymore. Whatever context that statement was made, it however did not fail to surprise the pundits.

India did not start off a great note and almost had their hearts in their mouth against the minnows Afghanistan. They picked up well against England only to be clobbered by Australia in the next game.

Dhoni’s claim that their performance in Sri Lanka was satisfactory seems to be a futile attempt to try and guard the blunders he made during the tournament. As a matter of fact, India never looked like that they would pose any serious threats to the heavyweights lined up for the tournament.

Dhoni’s audacious strategies have become very stereotyped and have lost its aura.  He no doubt has been one of the greatest captains in the history of Indian cricket but then the time has indeed come for serious introspection that whether he really is fit for the job.

Here are few fatal blunders Dhoni made during the tournament that led to India’s premature exit:

Team Selection: The biggest mistake that Dhoni made during the tournament was the team selection. His choice of playing XI cost India dearly. For instance Virender Sehwag was dropped in the match against Australia and India were battered in the match. He defended the idea saying that the team would go ‘horses for the courses’ approach in the tournament. That absolutely stands valid but then he should have dropped Zaheer Khan. His selection here defies logic and whatever his idea was behind this made India pay the price. And even when in the crucial game against South Africa, he opted for only one specialised spinner. It was a bit surprising because on the same pitch just few hours back Pakistan mauled Australia using five spinners. And knowing the fact that South Africans are the worst possible players of spin he still stuck to one spinner.

Faulty strategies against Australia: In the match against Australia, his decision to promote Irfan Pathan to open the innings made no sense at all. Pathan is a very useful batsman but then opening against Australia is too much of an ask for him. He did score 30 odd runs but then exhausted too many balls for it.

And then while defending a meagre total of 150; he gave the new ball to Ashwin. Dhoni knew the outfield was wet still he gave the ball to him who was unable to grip the ball properly and exhausted three of his overs in the powerplays.

Blunders against South Africa:  In the match against South Africa, he should have come out to bat before Rohit Sharma or should have sent Yuvraj Singh knowing that India needed big total. But he did not and Rohit Sharma in that match scored less run a ball.  

While fielding his captaincy reflected amateurism and inspite of knowing the fact that Proteas are always uncomfortable against spinners, he gave the ball to Ravichandran Ashwin only in the ninth over and in-fact asked Rohit Sharma to bowl an over before Ashwin.

South Africa smashed 13 runs from that over and played a huge role in changing the outcome of the match.

By Samikshan Dutta Choudhary

Indian Sports News