The entire cricketing fraternity hails him as the man with the golden touch. There was a time when he seem to be doing no wrong. His decisions always got him the desired result and he won everything that he set his eyes on. He brought great joy to India by winning 2 world cups, the first one in South Africa in 2007 and then in 2011 in Mumbai. Arguably the best Indian captain – Mahendra Singh Dhoni literally had the world at his feet. But as they say, time doesn’t wait for anyone and Dhoni is no exception.
In recent times, Dhoni found his match winning performances beginning to desert him. It’s natural, as you age, reflexes start to slow down and Dhoni who is on the other side of 35 started to experience this a couple of years back. Mind you, he is still very fit and extremely quick behind the wickets but in front of them he is no longer a nightmare to bowlers. His critics pull out the dagger each time he fails and his ardent fans start a quiet prayer every time he walks out to bat. There was a period when Dhoni would walk out to bat with the asking rate in excess of 10 runs an over but that would never bother him. He would be cool and confident of pulling off a victory and he did it time and again. In fact his exceptional skill of finishing the game won him the tag of the best finisher for many years. He would take every match deep believing in his talent of beating the bowler to the line by holding his nerve.
However, in the last few seasons, the conversion rate of winning tight matches have started to come down. People began to question if the template that he so successfully used to chart out many Indian victories was valid anymore. The opponents know if they pitched the ball upto him the fielders would be mere spectators and the spectators would be fielders. So they’ve started bowling fast and short or wide outside the off stump thereby not putting the ball in his swinging arc. Surprisingly even the spinners who he decimated with disdain is able to spin a web around him. Sometimes even rotating the strike has become difficult for Dhoni. When he started off in 2004 he took about 15 balls to settle down and thereafter dismissed the ball out of the ground no matter who the bowler was. But in the recent past the number of balls to settle down has increased, boundaries have started drying up and even piercing the field which he could probably do blindfolded in his heydays have become far and few in between. For a player, who dictated the game when he was batting, suddenly has started finding scoring runs a tedious task even against inexperienced bowlers.
They say numbers dont lie. Let’s take a look at Dhoni’s numbers from 2015-19. However strong a supporter you maybe, you’ll find the statistics far from being impressive. In 2015 he batted 17 times, scored four half centuries with a strike rate of 86. The next year that is 2016, things got harder for Dhoni… he batted in 10 innings, got past 50 only once and had a strike rate of 80. Come 2017, things got a little better for Dhoni but remember the majority matches he played were against Sri Lanka, West Indies and New Zealand. He scored 1 century, six 50s and a strike rate of 84. But 2018 has been nothing to write home about – with a strike rate of 71, not a single 50 or 100 and an average of 25, it surely has been the worst year for Dhoni as a batsman. In 2019, things got better for Dhoni and he scored 6 half centuries with an average of 60 but he has not played a single game since India’s exit from the World Cup in July. While his batting prowess has gone up and down, his numbers as a keeper has not dropped even a bit.
If we discuss white ball cricket, he is presently the best keeper in the country and that too by some distance. He has a fantastic cricketing brain and he reads the game extremely well; of course his advice to young bowlers are priceless and everybody has seen him setting fields when Virat is fielding on the boundary.
So the big question is: Should Dhoni be included for the T20 World Cup? For someone who has not played any cricket for more than 6 months at the fag end of his career, the selectors should evaluate his form and fitness. The IPL will be the testing ground for MSD. Every cricket fan will closely watch Dhoni at the IPL. CSK fans will hope that their Thaliva delivers yet again.
Who is Dhoni’s competition? Rishab Pant and Sanju Samson. Of course either of them can play as a pure batsman. While their aggressive and flamboyant batting are definitely tempting options as wicket-keeper batsman, in a high pressure game at the World Cup, in a crunch situation, the cool and calming effect of Dhoni behind the stumps has no substitute. If MSD has an above average IPL, the selectors should give the champion the world stage to perform one last time. Because great players excel on big platforms.
Who knows it could be Dhoni’s World Cup before he walks off into the sunset…
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