Article: Dhoni as a Captain

[MDStar]

Atharv said:

Sherlock Holmes would have no answer to the curious case of Vijay's inclusion in the Indian team

Doesn't that add to my advantage! I'd back myself at solving cricketing queries even if you put Holmes up against me'self
--

Vijay is a proven match winners and he has the right technique and attitude that one would require for test cricket.

But seeing that I stated the following immediately after my example..

*Stated above is a very simple example and is in no way related to a definitive scenario

-I don't see why we should go further into the matter.

Cheers

 

[Atharv]

Atharv said:


Doesn't that add to my advantage! I'd back myself at solving cricketing queries even if you put Holmes up against me'self
--

Vijay is a proven match winners and he has the right technique and attitude that one would require for test cricket.

But seeing that I stated the following immediately after my example..
-I don't see why we should go further into the matter.

Cheers

You are right . No point in wasting time on Vijay .

 

[MDStar]

Cheers then~
--
We'd better stay more on-topic.

 

[Atharv]

Before writing something, I would like to quote some lines on his Cricinfo profile
Scoring a duck in his ODI Debut just like Tendulkar, no one would have thought how this man will come out in future and eventually change the face of Indian cricket. The signs of his were shown in his 3rd match where he scored remarkable 148 against Pakistan. It was performance of clean hitting and extraordinary batting.

With change in time, He was tested as captain and sent to T20 WC 2007 where he proved successful. He lead the team with underdogs title with all new youngsters, pressure of performing better and lead the team into glory. This was much needed victory for Indian Cricket Team after their horrible performance 6 months back in ODI World Cup. This was the start in creating a new face for Indian Cricket. After this successful Tournament, He became captain and won a CB series in Australia defeating much strong Australia by that time. Becoming a regular captain, he changed his batting style, from aggressive to Moderate batsman. His batting averaged increased but so his critics. After a disappointment season in T20 WC 2009, people started calling him selfish. He took all criticism and waited for right time. That time came in where he became a captain for Test team after Anil Kumble. A young test captain with much pressure on his head, playing with seniors he stayed calm and lead the team into 1st spot in Test Cricket in history. He won Border-Gavaskar Trophy, drew series with SA in away for 1st time and at home in Tests. Now he is successful International captain. His success wasn't only in international but domestic also where he won IPL and Champions League.

But his main test came in ODI World Cup. He was out of form in whole world cup with both batting and captaincy. His shocking decision cost us match against SA. But after that, he won Quarter final match against Australia, Semifinal against Pakistan leading into perfect finale against Sri Lanka. Being out of form in whole tournament, He came forward at batting at No. 3 and scored a 91* where Team once were struggling at 31/2 with both openers out and hopes of winning world cup were going down. His partnership with Gambhir gave India to grab their hands on World Cup. It was the moment which Indians were waiting for 28 years and it came with a six from Dhoni. He got a man of the match award in finals which couldn't get better for him. India became new world champions after 1999.

He received many criticism that he has a Luck but people need to remember that winning a lottery one time is luck but winning it every time is not. It may call as luck when someone takes risk and shocking decisions and those decisions goes in favor of him but it's needs very brave man to take it every time. The seeds which were sown by Ganguly, watered by his successors were eventually grown at time of Dhoni. Today India is one of the stronger team and unlike 90's they don't have to depend on Tendulkar performance. Today Dhoni is a successful captain in all formats. As fas as I know he has won all the multinational and domestic tournaments (more than 3 teams) atleast once under his captaincy which includes T20 WC, IPL twice, Champions League, Asia Cup and World Cup. Today India is No. 1 in Test and has ODI World Cup. He gave a shoulder to Yuvraj when he was struggling with his fitness and form, Today he is now World Cup, man of tournament. I feel proud that today my team is captained by a Cool head, have guts to take brave decision man.

Sorry for short article but this was my first article here. Apologies for all the grammatical mistakes but I will learn with time.

Well .
Sourav Ganguly had the best Indian team of all times. But then Sourav Ganguly also had to face some very tough teams like Australia, Pakistan,SA,NZ and some of these teams were a tough nut to crack and a couple of these teams were in their prime form.

Dhoni does not have a great team .He has a decent team with a good batting line up . But then there is also that small issue of the standards of rival teams. It has fallen drastically . The fact that this Indian batting line up is considered to be the strongest batting line up in the World is proove enough.
Dhoni appears to be calm on the field. He takes risks, sometimes they are calculated risks at times bizarre (Ashwin and Chawla ).Sometimes these risks come off successfull(Joginder sharma) sometimes they don't(chawla , Jadeja). Now that Kirsten has departed it would be interesting to see Dhoni's captainy .
Also I think Dhoni is an extremely lucky captain. He is good but he is lucky too.

Not much too choose between Sourav Ganguly and Dhoni, but Ganguly should have won tht 2003 WC. However one can say that Dhoni is the most successful Indian captain . No doubt abt that .

 

[War]

A monkey could lead West Indian side of 1976-92

A monkey could lead Australian side of 1995-2007

A monkey would easily lead this so strong Indian side

Dhoni has done well as captain but its mostly because of unbelievable strength of Indian batting.On skill,I would rate Mansoor Khan Patoudi as the best Indian captain ever.

Its crazy to compare the current Indian team regardless of its batting strength to past great WI & AUS teams. Given that obviously those teams had quality bowling attack, with greath depth in resources. While India since 2008 has basically had one-man bowling attack & they dont have much quality bench strength.

So Dhoni deserves some credit in making a team with such a average bowling attack remain so solid in tests & leading them to a world-cup win. He clearly is an inspirational captain that gets every inch of talent out of his players - especially in the bowling attack. Although @ times he has had his luck.

But no doubt the real test of his captaincy will come when Tendy, Laxman, Zaheer, Dravid leaves in the 2 years.

----------

Well .
Sourav Ganguly had the best Indian team of all times. But then Sourav Ganguly also had to face some very tough teams like Australia, Pakistan,SA,NZ and some of these teams were a tough nut to crack and a couple of these teams were in their prime form.

Dhoni does not have a great team .He has a decent team with a good batting line up . But then there is also that small issue of the standards of rival teams. It has fallen drastically . The fact that this Indian batting line up is considered to be the strongest batting line up in the World is proove enough.
Dhoni appears to be calm on the field. He takes risks, sometimes they are calculated risks at times bizarre (Ashwin and Chawla ).Sometimes these risks come off successfull(Joginder sharma) sometimes they don't(chawla , Jadeja). Now that Kirsten has departed it would be interesting to see Dhoni's captainy .
Also I think Dhoni is an extremely lucky captain. He is good but he is lucky too.

Not much too choose between Sourav Ganguly and Dhoni, but Ganguly should have won tht 2003 WC. However one can say that Dhoni is the most successful Indian captain . No doubt abt that .

Ha what?????

 

[harrisb]

harrisb wrote:


That is not true at all. India have a formidable set of young cricketers who are waiting for an opportunity to represent their country at the national level. I don't have to go in-depth and state their names.

We WON the T20 world-cup in 2007 with a young brigade didn't we?
*Hi! We're at the present, the best team*
---

Okay.. if we remove the likes of Sehwag, Tendulkar we'd hardly have anything- you say? I'm sorry, what?

Sorry, the T20 world cup in 2007, wasn't that before the one in 2009, in which we knocked you out, and it was also before the most recent one in the West Indies which we won.

This isn't the place to argue over who is better, I'm sure the upcoming series will settle that, but your argument is fundamentally flawed

 

[MDStar]

You're definitely right about that. We'll see who reigns supreme at the end of the series (vs England).

MDStar

 

[cricketlover172]

Sorry, the T20 world cup in 2007, wasn't that before the one in 2009, in which we knocked you out, and it was also before the most recent one in the West Indies which we won.

This isn't the place to argue over who is better, I'm sure the upcoming series will settle that, but your argument is fundamentally flawed

And what if England fails to do so . You will agree that most of your ex-cricketers suffer from massive inferiority complex. Win a series against OZ and you become no.1.

 

[AngryPixel]

Point is, that India has the bench strength where Australia struggled after retirement of Langer,Hayden,Macgrath,Warne,Gilchrist etc.
In batting we have :

Kohli
Raina
Gambhir
Badrinaath
Rohit
Pujara
Uthappa

And in bowling we have

Ashwin
Rahul Sharma
Ishant (If he managed to stay fit)


I guess bowling is a bit of worry but batting would be strong even after retirement of Laxman, Sachin and Dravid. These youngsters wont become greats overnight. They need proper guidance and chance. Thats what India is doing in this ODI/Test Series vs WI.

 

[Anku31]

I think Dhoni as a captain has been a mystery.No one knows what he thinks,what makes him so cool on the field even in difficult situations.Only Dhoni knows Dhoni!

 

[harrisb]

And what if England fails to do so . You will agree that most of your ex-cricketers suffer from massive inferiority complex. Win a series against OZ and you become no.1.

Massive inferiority what??

Nobody cares what you say if they can't understand you, admittedly you have a good batting line-up, however your lower order batsmen have yet to prove themselves, and with the exception of Harbhajan and Zaheer Khan, I'm unimpressed by your other average bowlers,

It's going to be close, but we'll win because you won't be able to play our bowlers on a day when it's cloudy and favouring the bowlers; whereas we'll be able to dig in and score runs

 

[MDStar]

Are you certain about that? Because we can cope up just fine against pace bowling, even in English conditions. Also, we didn't do too bad last time around- beating y'all in the test series and loosing the ODIs(3-4).

Oh, by the way- Zaheer Khan made the most of the conditions and tormented your batsmen. I'm sure we'd only be glad to repeat ourselves and this time, in all matches.

MDStar

 

[SaiSrini]

Massive inferiority what??

Nobody cares what you say if they can't understand you, admittedly you have a good batting line-up, however your lower order batsmen have yet to prove themselves, and with the exception of Harbhajan and Zaheer Khan, I'm unimpressed by your other average bowlers,

It's going to be close, but we'll win because you won't be able to play our bowlers on a day when it's cloudy and favouring the bowlers; whereas we'll be able to dig in and score runs

The thing with India is, you can never predict. We have the players who can dig in and score runs even when its cloudy and favoring bowlers. Gambhir, Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman will form the crux of our lineup who can battle it out. If Pujara or Badrinath or Kohli is picked for the 6th batsman position instead of Raina or Yuvraj, we will have one more batsman who can battle it out.

 

[War]

Point is, that India has the bench strength where Australia struggled after retirement of Langer,Hayden,Macgrath,Warne,Gilchrist etc.
In batting we have :

Kohli
Raina
Gambhir
Badrinaath
Rohit
Pujara
Uthappa

And in bowling we have

Ashwin
Rahul Sharma
Ishant (If he managed to stay fit)


I guess bowling is a bit of worry but batting would be strong even after retirement of Laxman, Sachin and Dravid. These youngsters wont become greats overnight. They need proper guidance and chance. Thats what India is doing in this ODI/Test Series vs WI.

Their is difference between having bench strength with potential & having that is of proven quality.

India batting bench strength is just talent at this stage (how is Gambhir best strength - he is in the main XI in tests). None are really proven @ test match level.

Its also a MASSIVE call for you to state that INDs batting will be even stronger after the legend trio retire. The last 20 years with the legend trio & Ganguly & Azharruddin has been Indian's greatest era of batsmen since India starting playing tests in 1932. Those are MASSIVE shoes left to be filled, comparable to Australia looking for a replacement for Warne. So i'd say you are seriously under-rating the void that will be left.

Sharma & Raina have already looked susceptible @ test level just like how Yuvraj, Bahrdwaj, Kambli, Kanitkar, Jaffer, Kaif, Chopra, Das, Amre, Ramesh, Badani have all came & failed in the last 20 years they few times other batsmen got a chance if Tendy/Dravid/Laxman/Azhar/Ganguly. So your confidence isn't based on recent evidence.

In the bowling yes spin talent is always strong - but thats aint a surprise. But the quick bowling behind Zaheer is clearly a mess at the moment.

 

[AkshayS]

We should talk after the trio retires, you can never predict.
Our young batsmen are really coming good and IMO we have the best bench strength when it comes to batting.
Really waiting for England series as many things are still needed to be proven. Can't wait.