The year is 2006. T20 cricket is in its infancy, and the global transformation in scoring rates it will bring is far away.
In Karachi, India needs 147 runs off 118 balls, when MS Dhoni walks in at 4. Along with Yuvraj, he ensures an India win with 19 balls to spare. At the end of over 42, Dhoni is on 33 from 37 balls, and the asking rate has risen to 8.25. The next 5 overs bring 12, 12, 14, 14, and 14 runs. He ends on 72 off 56. Long before the tri-series in Australia and the almost-lost matches against Sri Lanka, this is the Dhoni method, already formed and displayed in full glory.
Dhoni’s Evolution in ODIs
From that long-haired swashbuckler to the measured buzz cut who delivered a World Cup final victory walking into a tricky chase, Dhoni has assembled a reputation as a unique master of the chase. His method is simple: take it till the end and then back yourself to smash. The mantra is uncomplicated and characteristically zen: one can’t do much with the bat from the dressing room, so ensure you be there to guide the team home.
Till 2014, India won 57 of the 108 chases Dhoni was part of, and he stayed at the crease till 92% of the target was achieved, on average, staying unbeaten 36 times.
After settling into captaincy, Dhoni became an accumulator, notching up 40-odd runs by nudging and running with aggression and intelligence, settling in and making a base to hit out later. It is what Virat Kohli does now, and it is what made Dhoni one of the best batsmen in the world for a string of years. Since 2015, however, he’s become prone to exhibit a certain lethargy when new to the crease. Coupled with that is a noticeable wane in his hitting power. Thus, both the pillars of his approach have weakened.
Two Sided Weaknes
He gets stuck on that middle length to spinners, to balls which are too quick for him to advance, too flat for him to get on to on the front foot, and too full to be bashed off the backfoot. The effects are clear in his strike rate against spin declining over the past few years .
International bowlers have figured out that cramping him for space deflates his run scoring ability. High pace bowled into his body allows no room for him to swing his arms, a hallmark of his booming shots over long off and long on. In response, he has not evolved to introduce new tools in his repertoire. The odd ball he does get in the slot, he is unable to dispatch, sometimes going too hard, and oftentimes losing shape while trying to bash the leather off the ball.
A Claim For Promotion
IPL 2018 was a mountain of individual performance in a rather barren plain for Dhoni, with a tally of 455 runs striking at 150 over 15 innings. What was different? The cynical first point is the weakness of IPL bowling attacks, where weak links can be found and strategically attacked. The more important reason is his batting position. For the past few years, a usually reticent Dhoni has murmured about the freedom that comes with batting higher up the order. The results are clear in his knocks in this year’s IPL. Coming in with the cushion of hitters and batters after him, Dhoni came in earlier than usual, took his time to settle in, and then was calm enough to go hammer-and-tongs at the end. Fortunately for India, one of the outstanding issues in their batting order is the question over the two-down batsman. The exit of Yuvraj Singh has coincided with bountiful returns from the troika of Dhawan-Rohit-Kohli, ignoring the question of who follows them.
Could Dhoni fit in at number four to solve two of India’s issues at one go?
A Samaritan at Six
First, let’s look at his performances after the 2015 World Cup. He averages 45, faces about 41 balls per innings, and has a strike rate of 82. The criticism that he inflates his average by not outs does not hold water, since he faces 38 balls on an average in his unbeaten innings as well. The graver doubts about him have to do with his utility late in the order.
Let’s deconstruct the innings of some prominent number 6 batsmen of today. The following graph plots the strike rate versus the balls played per innings. Dhoni has the highest balls per innings, but the lowest strike rate while playing at number six.
The scoring rate is a glaring issue, especially in light of the trends of ODI cricket, but the graph suggests he stays longer at the crease than others. Digging into the context of his innings at number six will shed light on his low strike rates.
Let us analyse the four innings he has batted at number six when he’s come in to bat at the earliest. Against Sri Lanka at Dharamsala he put up a rearguard 65 as the team collapsed for 112 runs. The next was a masterful 67 not out, walking in at 61-4 in an eventually successful chase of 218. Against Australia in Chennai, he again consolidated a faltering innings at 64-4, leading India to a winning first innings total of 281. Then, in Kandy he led India through the tricky chase of 232, coming in the 18th over and finishing at the crease with a 45 off 68.
So, although his scoring is slow, looking deeper at just four innings gives us an insight into why exactly he goes slowly: he performs the role of the anchor and the builder as the team falters around him. Contrasting with someone with a good strike rate, we see how Miller’s record is mostly made by two sparkling tons, against Australia, coming in the 24th over, and helped by partnerships with Duminy, Pretorius and Phehlukwayo, and against Sri Lanka, walking in at 19.4, and helped by Chris Morris and Faf du Plessis. Another top striker, Ben Stokes, has come in to bat in the 35th over or later in five of his seven innings. He comes in with a platform already set.
With India’s top 3 in fiery form over the past three years, Dhoni has not needed to bat on most occasions. When he does though, he is busy playing doctor to a collapsed lineup. There lies some reason for his substandard strike rate.
His credentials as a rebuilder are now established. What about that other role he used to play to perfection, the hitter? Here too, his batting position plays a role. Let’s look at the innings when he walks in with less than 50 balls left in the innings. He has 84 runs off 54 balls (SR of 156) in the 5 innings he’s played at 4 or 5. At 6 or 7, he has played 53 balls in 6 such innings with a strike rate of 92. Hence, even in the death overs, he performs better when coming higher up, with the safety of other batsmen down the order.
Number Four: Two Birds With One Stone?
In the T20 age, batting is a bash aided by flat decks and conducive laws. This in turn makes collapses more frequent, and more abject. The slightest help to bowlers leads to capitulation of batting sides, and this phenomenon is seen across formats. And insurance against those situations is the value this new, quieter Dhoni adds to this Indian side. The innings described above are proof of Dhoni’s skills: an obdurate and calm batting presence, tough to dismiss and bursting with experience. As Dhoni the batsman has evolved, his style has become more solid, albeit less explosive. His forte is spending time at the crease and guiding innings, rather than setting the turf ablaze from the word go.
His high balls-per-innings, invaluable knocks under pressure, and the fact that even his hitting is better at higher positions, points to a novel but old use for this new avatar. Dhoni averages almost 66 at numbers 3 and 4, numbers built up by some of his most memorable innings early in his career. With time, he took up the finisher’s mantle to yield balance to the Indian side, sacrificing a top order position. That he has 10,000 ODI runs while mostly batting below 5, begs the question: what would his run tally have been had he continued at the top?
Kohli the captain must take a leaf from the book of his predecessor. Chennai Super Kings winning the IPL this year was as much about their players as it was about their optimum handling, extricating the best from the team through astute player-management. Putting Dhoni at number four solves India’s middle-order muddle, placing at the fulcrum a solid accumulator who loves running with Kohli. At the same time, the numbers hint that it solves the issue of Dhoni himself, giving him both the time to settle in and hold the team innings, and the cushion and freedom to play his shots if need be. In a steep run chase, it instructs him to start hitting after a settling-in period, the promise of batting to come, thereby making him dispensable.
It also goes without saying that Dhoni adds unquantifiable value to the team through his sharp on-field management and an unorthodox keeping style that sometimes creates dismissals out of thin air. A batsman of his caliber and experience is indispensable to the team, more so with the World Cup less than a year away. Yes, the vagaries of time have caught up with the ruthless smasher, but that hardly means the stoic and wise stalwart should be shelved away.
(The author is a graduate student in physics from Delhi. He enjoys reading Ghalib, discovering his city and singing, when he's not simulating models of the universe.)
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