Since last year's World Cup win, India have lost 4-0 in away Test series
twice, have been knocked out in the first round of two one-day
tournaments, and have failed to go past the first serious round of the
World Twenty20. One of their Test openers has not scored a century in nearly two years, the other will have gone three without one if he doesn't reach three figures against England. Their best bowler's endurance is now under doubt, he has not taken a Test five-for in two years nor an ODI four-for in four,
and he is a liability in the field in limited-overs cricket. Their
captain's defensive mindset, especially when out of his comfort zone, is
well documented.
It doesn't help that their coach is a man credited with introducing
deep cover in the first half-hour of a Test match. If the board, the
captain, the coach and the selectors are not worried, they had better
find new jobs.
It is just as well that India have failed at T20 too, a format way more
popular in the country than Tests telecast early in the day. The
captain, though, will tell you India were "satisfactory" in Sri Lanka,
where they won four matches out of five, where they were slotted in a
group of teams that all won their preliminary leagues, where it rained
in their match against Australia, and where they lost the toss when they
needed to improve their net run rate. This is reminiscent of the tour
of Australia, where they made perfectly fair pitches sound like green
tops on which the ball seamed around like a drunk. In a fair world, they
might tell you, India should still be No. 1 in Tests, and World
Twenty20 champions to boot.
If you look closely, though, you will find it was all loaded in India's
favour in Sri Lanka. They played on pitches that suited them: dry, and
assisting spinners. They didn't have to adjust to new venues, unlike Sri
Lanka, who played each of their three rounds at a new venue. Most
importantly India played the last match of the Super Eights, unlike
Pakistan, who played blind, not knowing exactly what they needed to do.
India, on the other hand, knew they needed to restrict South Africa to 121, and still refused to gamble at all.
They didn't fail when it rained enough to take the players off for five
minutes. (By the way, they had won the toss that night, they knew rain
was forecast, and still picked three spinners and chose to bat first.)
The failure had actually begun when the selectors picked the squad. The
captain was given a side with little energy, little fitness, no pace
options, and the outrageous return of Piyush Chawla. MS Dhoni gets some
deserved flak for certain moves, but who could he turn to?
This is not to absolve Dhoni, though. Especially when he claims four
wins out of five as some sort of moral victory, as the "best they could
do" but for one bad loss. For, the fourth of those wins was meaningless.
When you know all along that you have to beat South Africa by 31 runs
to stay alive but you nearly give up trying to do so after four overs,
the eventual one-run win should hardly count as a win.
It was surreal watching the defensive fields as South Africa inched
towards that 122. There was a time when India were 24 runs from
elimination with seven overs to bowl, and R Ashwin, India's best chance
of taking wickets against a side that struggles against spin, still had
three overs left. True to Dhoni's captaincy form over the last year and a
half, India hoped, waited, sat back.
There were more signs of diffidence. When Dhoni finally made the bold
move of dropping Virender Sehwag, he immediately cancelled it out by
asking Irfan Pathan to open, seeking the reassurance of a No. 7 batsman
in a 20-over game. Elsewhere, three of the four semi-finalists had three
of their best batsmen in the top four. They didn't spend their energies
worrying what if it all went wrong and what if they were five down well
inside 20 overs. They wanted their best batsmen to go out there, bat
well and make use of as many balls as possible. India had one of the
best limited-overs batsmen in the world refusing to bat any higher than
No. 7, while others scratched around wasting precious balls. To loosely
translate a Punjabi saying, if you leave the house wailing, you will
bring back news of the dead.
Any team is built around three pillars: selectors, captain and coach. At
the moment, two of India's are failing and the third we don't know
anything about. Except that he is working for a board that opposes one
of his ideas, the DRS. Except that he was a master of gamesmanship, and
the team he now works with calls batsmen back because it fears criticism
from the media. Except that he loved the use of pace but is made to
work with trundlers in international cricket while the one proper fast
bowler India have plays domestic cricket. How comfortable is Duncan
Fletcher with this job? We don't know, and we never might.
These are important times. Over the coming two Test series, India are
supposed to show England and Australia they too are rubbish away from
home. More importantly, they are supposed to rebuild, with 2013 onwards
in mind, when they will tour South Africa, England, New Zealand and
Australia. There have been no signs that the Srikkanth-led panel of
selectors and the captain were looking that far ahead. They are all
hoping, waiting, sitting back. The openers continue to get a rope longer
than perhaps any other set has had, Zaheer Khan's workload refuses to
come down, and we don't know if Sachin Tendulkar is committed to going
to South Africa in November 2013.
Dhoni was a remarkably good leader of a settled team, selflessly taking
the back seat and making sure his superstar players got the best
environment in which to do their thing. Now, though, that same coolness
makes him look like he is going through the motions. He forever gives
the impression he is not happy with the squad, with the pitches, with
the format. Yet he also seems reluctant to take complete charge.
With the team in flux, India need a more assertive and proactive Dhoni,
both on and off the field. A Dhoni prepared to make the tough calls,
eager to shape his own team, more Imran Khan than Viv Richards. A
captain who demands certain standards of the team, one who refuses to
carry non-performers. A captain prepared to take on some pressure by
asking for the team he wants, and not sulk later. If he can win a match
in three days and still criticise the groundsman for not giving his side
enough home advantage, surely he can be forceful in selection matters
too? He even has a fresh set of selectors, a clean slate if you will, to
work with.
However, if Dhoni is not willing to be that man, or not capable of it,
or if he has lived his shelf life as captain, there are no alternatives
India can turn to. Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir will be better off worrying
about keeping their places in the side, and Tendulkar is close to
retiring. Impressive as his maturing as a cricketer is, Virat Kohli
might still be too young for the Test job.
We don't know if Dhoni loses sleep over things like the legacy he will
leave as captain, but we know that if he can't arrest this free fall, it
will offset the World Cup win and the rise to No. 1 in Tests. Dhoni has
never given the impression he is trying too hard, except when he is
batting perhaps, but the next two-three years are cut out for a captain
willing to try too hard.
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