These days when I read newspapers or people sharing their
opinion on social networking sites, I see everyone is mad about Dhoni, questioning
his creditability as a captain and a batsman, following India’s early exit from
T20 world cup. These are the same newspapers or people who were all full of
praise for team India after having nailed Pakistan and England like never
before. Strange, isn’t it? Then all of the sudden why this criticism? There is
no denying that we all re hurt ‘coz the captain cool could not win his THIRD
world cup. But is this his failure alone? Is this the case that when resources
were overflowing, all batsmen and bowlers were in form and fielders were as
energetic and alert as they should be? I guess the answer is no! This is a
collective failure of the team and blaming captain alone might help our frustration
level to come down but it will not serve the purpose. Look at our openers, what
have they done? Not even a single half century from Sehwag and Gambhir in any
of the matches. Now compare it with Australia, Srilanka or Westindies. Verdict is
: openers failed, means early pressure on the team, means powerplay overs are
not utilized, means scores can rarely cross 150. That’s what actually happened.
Now let’s move ahead. Middle order was fine, thanks to Kohli. Dhoni and Raina
provided late bursts in lower middle order most of the times. Now coming to the
bowling, an unfit and out of rhythm Zaheer Khan far away from his best left a
weak bowling unit directionless. But still, they made most of whatever they had
got and begged all 10 wickets of the opposition on 4 out of 5 occasions.
Impressive, isn’t it? Well, now look at most criticized decisions made by
Dhoni: first of them was not playing Sehwag against Australia. Now those who
had seen South Africa vs Pakistan match, they will agree that it was a valid
decision playing 3 spinners. Pitch was turning square and fine performances by
Harbhajan and Piyush in the previous
match supported the decision. Now if they had to play 5 bowlers, who else could
be dropped to make way for Sehwag: Gautam- no, not after a fine 40 in last
match, Kohli- oh no!, yuvi- his bowling alongside glimpses of old Yuvraj were enough for him to be in the team, Rohit- no,
he made an unbeaten 50 in last match, Raina- no, he had done nothing wrong,
Dhoni- well… So that leaves us with no choice then to keep Viru out. Now next
most criticized decision was why bowling Rohit ahead of Ashwin in last super 8
match, well… here I will use critical reasoning. Why nobody objected when Yuvi
was given the bowl ahead of Ashwin, coz he begged ABD’s wicket, right! If he had failed, the same people would have
thrashed Dhoni giving an over to yuvi ahead of Ashwin. A game is played like this
only. Some of your decisions fail, some click. And those suggesting removal of
Dhoni as captain, please tell me who can replace him? Most of the players are
unfit, most of them are out of form.Virat is the only choice they
have got and I guess he still has sometime left to be ready for this bigger
responsibility. He needs to control his anger and his emotions to grab the most
coveted position in the team. It’s so easy for us to pick an individual and
kick his ass to express our passion, our support and our concern but logical reasoning
and thinking is required at the moment to help the team coming out of this
crisis. And I am sure people will again fall for Dhoni once the team beats
England and Pakistan in future series. This is a cycle which keeps repeating.
Aaah… I will like to end this article with the same quote:
“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain
but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.”
Dale Carnegie
MSD for life \m/
