That repetitive cycle of praise and criticism!

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/