NEW DELHI, (Reuters) – Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s one-match ban means the India captain will have time for an introspective look as to where and when his Midas touch deserted him as his team mates battle to avoid a series whitewash against Australia in Adelaide.
Dhoni, who will miss next week’s fourth test after the ICC banned him because of India’s slow over rate in the third test defeat in Perth on Sunday, has enjoyed a fairytale rise from the cricketing backwaters of the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand.
In what seemed like a storyline straight out of a Bollywood script, he led teams to Twenty20 (2007) and 50-over (2011) World Cup victories and oversaw their rise as the number one test team in the world, thus convincing many he was India’s best captain ever.
His unflappable leadership, as much as his tactical brilliance and uncomplicated approach, impressed most, including a management institute in his home town Ranchi which wanted to do a brain-mapping of the Indian captain.
It was a fairytale too good to last long and Dhoni met his Waterloo in England last year, a nightmare that returned to haunt him in Australia.
Dhoni’s brand of leadership, which earned him the nickname of ‘Captain Cool’, was ridiculed by a cricket expert who likened him to a clerk in an Indian bank – with no real passion or anger.
In England, where a 4-0 whitewash completed in August robbed the team of the top test status last year, Dhoni could at least blame it on injuries to key players.
In Australia, following two innings defeats that have left them trailing 3-0, he has no such luxury.
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For quite a while, Dhoni has not looked quite in command and the Perth test was a good case in study.
The sheer rarity of the move to field an all-pace attack, axing off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin to accommodate debutant pace bowler Vinay Kumar, baffled most. “I’m surprised, a spinner could have exercised some control here,” former captain Ravi Shastri rued on air as the Indian pacers strayed their line and got hammered by Australian opener David Warner on the first day. In a way, Dhoni met his comeuppance and incurred a one-match ban after India were found two overs short of target. It may not have been the case had one of his frontline bowlers been a spinner.
