MS Dhoni, famously known as 'Captain Cool', 'MSD' and 'Dhanadhan Dhoni', has retired from the test cricket. He will continue to play the one day cricket and T20s. He was the captain of Indian cricket team this morning and now a former Indian test player and captain of course. How quickly times moves! How surprisingly people decide and declare! All in all, I'm not much impressed with this decision of MSD. I've not been a person who is a fan of his expressions or statements. However, I've always followed the news about him. Being the captain of the Indian cricket team, he has of course driven the team to victories in many tests. He is, as per the stats, the best winning captain so far. But I've my own doubts if he is the best person to captain the Indian side ever.
In his tenure, he got some players in their best of the forms. Form is a state of mind as Dhoni rightly quoted few days back. Viru, Yuvi, Sachin, Raina and Kohli have been the pillars in many of the famous test victories of Team India. I do not deny the fact that Dhoni has always been a qualitative finisher, probably the best! But in the position that he bats for India, he could not have done more in terms of runs. The attitude of his batting is evident enough almost always to finish on winning note. However, there were number of occasions when he failed to bat along with the tail-end players. There were number of occasions he failed to prove himself as a strong middle order batsmen. Well, not in all matches a player can play well. But looking at the number of matches he has played, and the way he used to drag the innings until the very end of the overs, although he is famous for hitting the sixes including the winning six in the world cup final on the home soil, he could have done much better considering the chances he got to prove as a batsmen.
As a captain, yes, he has proven himself. Although it was because of the great play of some of his teammates in his tenure, driving the young team to victory in his first T20 world cup and driving the team to many victories at home and hence to the top spot in the test rankings are some of the contributions he has made. Many young players have been lucky enough to get the Indian cap. Equally, many quality players had to leave the team and are still away from the team! Sehwag and Gambhir have been great openers and cannot be seen now at all in any of the tours. Agree or not, there was a cold-war kind sensed among these players and their captain. Eventually or incidentally, Viru and Gambhir were thrown out! Of course they lost their form. But if form is just a state of mind, as Mr Ex- Test Captain quotes, Sehwag and Gambhir should have been given the chance too! A debate on this might never end. So I choose to cut this short.
Retirement is a player's personal decision. I agree and fully respect Dhoni's views on it. But the timing is appearing to be not correct and hence his decision is unimpressive, to me. He could have waited for some more time! At least until the world cup is played! Anyway there are no tests planned before world cup, as much as I'm aware of it, except the remaining Sydney test. This decision could be a savior from much of the criticism for the series defeat down under. But I'm sure he is stronger enough to handle it and he always did. Well, I just hope the decision was taken in as genuine interest of the team as it is appearing to be. Kohli is the next option that BCCI have. But Kohli lags a lot in terms of emotional quotient which is one of the stronger points of MSD. Kohli must adapt his former captain's good sense of humor with media by not being straight forward as he is now. Its a good opportunity for Kohli at this age. He needs to prove himself, now. Because of IPL, Indian team now has many players with captaincy experience including Rohit Sharma. Kohli could as well bag some. I just hope the age group that Kohli belong to does not lead to any 'Gang War' in the team!
Best wishes to Kohli and co. I think we will get to hear Dhoni's decision about retiring from all forms of cricket from the Down Under, probably after the world cup! It will not surprise me even if he announces his retirement before the world cup. Be ready Kohli!
1 comment:
Dhoni knew well that he must quit when he can and not when he must.His timing in the midst of series was done with aplomb.
A captain is as strong as the team that is mainly decided by the selectors.If the team fails there is very little that a captain can do.He was not brash and was calm and collected.He had his likes and dislikes as any other captain has.
It is good that he continues to lead in the shorter forms of the game.
Post a Comment