MS Dhoni & team has yet again proved that its no fluke,luck or blip but true professionalism that has made winning a habit. It was really nice to see that the whole team contributing to the series win. One has to give full credit to Dhoni for making each and every member of the team believe that we can win any opponents, any where and under any conditions. The most fabulous thing about Dhoni is that he has been able to manage this with two different set of players, for T20 & ODI half the team is different and very young, on the other side he has been successful in making even the experienced players to believe that they can win any team and win consistently.
The brilliance of Gambhir,care free Sehwag,flamboyant Yuvraj,aggressive bhaji,Ishant,crafty Zaheer and cool dhoni has made the seniors Sachin,Dravid & Laxman to give that extra bit and made sure that they contribute and contribute when it matters most. Gambhir has been just too good over the last couple of seasons, the biggest strength i see in him is the fearlessness on facing any opponent. He gives respect only to the delivery and not to the bowler who bowls and his past record or reputation etc, if the delivery needs to be hit it will be hit. The hundred he made in the 2nd test just proves that he has arrived in style and he can play out time if the circumstances requires. I wish that he continues this fearless attitude in the coming seasons also without fearing for his reputation.
Zaheer & Harbajan has been brilliant through out the series with some brilliant spells. Even though the strike rate can be improved , both of them made sure that they bowl to the plan. Lot was expected from Ishant in the helpful conditions but he bowled well in patches but was not able to repeat the magic he did in Australia, i am sure he will come back strongly in the upcoming series.Munaf played his part to perfection, supporting Zaheer & Ishanth sharma, Yovraj,sehwag & sachin did their bit as bowlers.
Few disappointments as for as the Test Series was Sehwag, he did play few quick fire knocks but failed to convert them into big scores. I feel Yuvraj was also very tentative and most of times cramped to some good quick bowling from CrisMartin and feel that its time we have to try RohithSharma/Raina/Kholi/M.Vijay in test matches and leave Yuvraj to concentrate on ODI and T20. Dhinesh Karthick got a golden chance and missed to capitalize on that and again failed to perform with the bat and i think he has hit the last nail in his international carrier. Its very unfortunate that Misra & Vijay dod not get even a single game in the tour, lets hope that these youngsters get their chances before they give up.
Sorry folks will post on Rajasthan Royals next up.
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5 comments:
A wonderful series for the Indians. Dhoni is indeed doing a very good job as skipper. Congrats for their achievement.
Now a few concerns, I personally like many others felt that the declaration in the final test came a bit late. We could have gone for the kill by declaring a bit early and should have earned a 2-0 result which we truly deserved.
Another spot of concern with our team is the fielding, they are refusing to learn from the past. We have already failed to win matches due to some ordinary fielding efforts. And even in this series the fielding was a big let down. Even Yuvraj(one of our best fielders) grassed a couple of catches. The team have to work very hard in this front to improve its stature in world cricket.
To achieve No. 1 ranking in the world we definitely need to work on the above two factors. Ready to take some brave decisions. And the fielders should convert the half chances to wickets.
All the best for the future seasons Captain Cool & Team India.
Reading your title and the first paragraph, I thought this post will be an analysis about Dhoni (with some of the strategies adopted in the game) and why his success is not-a-fluke. Was expecting a much more detailed analysis on this point from you.
Currently, everything is going right for team-India (this could be due to the captain) and hence the captain will certainly get his share of praise for managing the team. If things start falling apart, not sure if the same crowd will still back Dhoni. At that time, they will come up with all kinds of reasons for Dhoni's failure (just like how they are telling reasons for his success now!)
Thiyagu,
Captain is as good as the team !!, We have seen lot of great players lead the side and fail miserably (ex : Sachin,Lara,Richards,Miandad etc). Leading team like ours is very big challenge and Dhoni has been very successful in this and its almost 2 seasons now he has been able to bring the best of the players.
There is always scope for improvement and as you said that the same people will curse him for each and every step when things go wrong.To me Dhoni has wonderful as a leader and the strength to keep the team united is a remarkable thing.
On analysis part on the game, it is becoming very obvious these days we know and predict easily what will happen and who should bowl here and who should bat now kind of things.
If i have to point one strength with dhoni approach towards captaincy, I feel that his captaincy is unconventional at the same time shows aggretion when ever it is needed.
On the lighter side, lets praise him when he does things right and go for the kill when he makes mistakes :-) but i feel he has been reasonably good with both the bat and glove and has been pretty successful in keeping the team united.
Ajay,
Yes, we would have gone for the kill and come back with 2-0 result but Dhoni's first target is to come back with a series win so he would have taken the easy way out. After all we can not fight the weather. Lets enjoy the win :-)
As you said, our fielding has to improve and improve leaps and bounds no doubt about that.
Well said Vasu... its a true professional performance by our men.. and lot of it has to be attributed to Dhoni for making the players feel their responsibility and also make sure that they are not bogged down by the weight of it... as some players told before.. dhoni just assures the players that u will be in the team for atleast another X matches.. which lets the players play their natural game without thinking too much abt the consequences...
coming to the batsmen.. they all performed admirably well.. eventhough the pitches aided batting, its still a commendable job to defend two days and take the agressive role when situation demanded in the third test.. Sachin.. its very nice to see him bat like the sachin of old.. without too much pressure...
the fielding SHOULD be improved a lot.. had we held on to the three catches that came our way on the last day of the last test.. we could have wrapped the match even before the clouds have gathered.. anyway.. the series win is always special.. in that way dhoni made sure that the series is ours...
more challenges await our team when they tour westindies/southafrica in the near future.. hope our team continuesin the same vein
The question of 'why Dhoni is a good captain' is best answered by the Indian players playing under him. Today's Hindu has Gambhir's interview where he says how Dhoni has made a difference to his career. So one inference from that is he is trying to take all pressure off the players and letting them think about their performance one game at a time.
The other instance I remember is Dhoni letting Ganguly captain the team during the last stages of his last match. Here, it is how he is not missing such small little things, which goes a long way in building a great team.
We have heard of phrases 'enjoying each other's success' etc. May be he has more theories and trying to implement them. What we see is a refreshingly new Indian team and in the last two years the team has demonstrated both dominance and resilience under pressure. If this continues they should evolve to be successuful and popular like the WI team of 70s/80s (well not quite), and unlike aussies' notorious sledging and all that ('mental disintegration').
Ian Chappel and David Lloyd's commentary during last T20 WC SF sums it up : 'India are playing in the personality of their captain. Fearless !'. Its to Dhoni's credit that he could inflict his personality to others !!
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