The Dhoni-T20 Debate: Is He Irrelevant, or Just Unfairly Targeted?

Virat’s stand has shown the difference between public discourse and the inner machinations of the dressing room.

Whether he’s holding the bat or the microphone in hand, Virender Sehwag has only ever known one way – smack the ball hard.

So when he was posed with a bouncer regarding the future of MS Dhoni, the former Indian opener in a TV interview said: “He will never block the way for any young cricketer. The team needs him at the moment, even in T20 cricket. (But) he has to score and play freely from ball one.”

VVS Laxman played his cricket in a different manner to Sehwag’s. Aptly described as the ‘Smiling Assassin’, Laxman never flashed anger at either the bowler or the ball, yet caressed it to the boundary with ease. And so, when he was presented with the same ‘bouncer’, he stroked it with finesse.

“Virat Kohli was batting with a strike-rate of 160 and Dhoni was batting at 80 when India were chasing a mammoth total. That’s not good enough and I feel it is time for Dhoni to give youngsters a chance in the T20 format,” Laxman said after the Rajkot T20.

Also Read: Team Management Must Brief Dhoni About His Role in T20s: Sehwag

Is Dhoni Relevant?

Whenever Dhoni’s name comes up, words and phrases like ‘legend’, ‘star’, ‘finisher’, ‘wonder of modern-day cricket’ spring to mind. And today, another word that finds resonance with him is ‘relevance’ – all people talk about now is Dhoni’s ‘relevance’ to India’s present and future plans in ODIs and T20s.

The easy answer is to look at his age – 36 years old – and then spot the next World T20 in sight – 2020 in Australia – thus calling for an immediate exit.

But the question that arises is whether team India are even preparing for that tournament scheduled to be played three years later?

The answer is no.

India are busy experimenting and building up for the 2019 ODI World Cup in England.

So much so that the team management aren’t even differentiating between ODIs and T20Is, instead using both formats to try different formulae.

This little fact might have gone missing from the general public’s attention, but open scorecards from India’s series against Sri Lanka, Australia and New Zealand, and the proof stares right back at you.

The Indian middle order in particular has used five batsmen – KL Rahul, Hardik Pandya, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav and Dinesh Karthik – at No 4 in 13 ODIs. If T20Is are taken into account, Shreyas Iyer and Kohli too get added to that list.

This constant change in the batsmen had also had a direct impact on Dhoni’s spot in the batting order. Sample this: While batting at No 5 this year, Dhoni has scored 398 runs in 13 ODIs at an average of 56.85 including a hundred and three half-centuries.

Ever since the tour of Sri Lanka, when India started this experimentation phase, Dhoni has batted at No 5 in only one match – against New Zealand at Kanpur, scoring 25.

Owing to this flux in the Indian middle-order, Dhoni has been shafted down to No 6 and 7 in the ODI line-up, and not once has he batted at No 4.

Team Wants Dhoni to Bat at Five

Two things are clear here. The team management wants him to bat at five, anchoring the middle order between Kohli and Dhoni. But, the pressing concerns about No 4 at the moment do not allow this. Experimentation pushed Dhoni down from his favoured spot, giving voice to his critics. This argument finds a higher pitch when it comes to T20Is. Herein, it is about strike-rate as well, as Sehwag and Laxman said.

For a long time now, India have lacked big-hitting ability in the shortest format. A pertinent reasoning for this is their insistence on fielding nearly the same players in both ODIs and T20Is. While it serves the purpose of building up to a particular tournament – 2019 in this case – it also poses queries when something, or someone, comes unstuck. Like, Dhoni’s contribution in Rajkot, which is not considered up to the mark.

Also Read: Dhoni is a Legend, Knows What He’s Doing: Bhuvneshwar Kumar

Batting at six, the wicketkeeper-batsman scored 49 off 37 balls when India were chasing 197 with a batsman short. India were 11-2 at one stage, with both openers contributing only 6 runs in total. Dhoni came to bat at 67-4 in the 10th over with no other batsmen behind him, and helped raise visions of an improbable victory as he stitched up a 56-run partnership with Kohli. By what measure is this not good enough?

Virat came out and defended his senior teammate after the conclusion of the T20 series against New Zealand. He said: “Even Hardik couldn’t score in that game. If I fail three times, nobody is going to point fingers at me because I am not over 35. We also have to look at the fact that by the time he comes in, either the run rate is already over 8 or 9 per over and the wicket is also not the same when the new ball is bowled”.

From a personal viewpoint, Dhoni knows where he stands. Even in the last year or so, he has spoken out at various times about the challenges in playing on until the next World Cup. During India’s tour of Australia in January 2016, he spoke about his inability to hit out from the word go, the need to bat higher up, taking his time and building the innings. And in the summer of 2016, before India left for their tour of Zimbabwe, he spoke on the need to be fitter than ever before, and since the Yo-Yo test’s fanciful introduction, the former skipper hasn’t flinched once.

“We are conveniently targeting only one man, which is not fair. I don’t understand this. The guy is fit, he is passing all the fitness tests, and he is contributing to the team in every way possible, tactically on the field, with the bat,” Kohli had added.

Also Read: People Conveniently Targeting Dhoni: Virat Kohli Bats For Mahi

Virat’s words brings out the differentiation between public discourse and the inner machinations of the Indian dressing room. Emotional quotient cannot be a factor when charting the course to a major tournament, and unlike its billion-strong fandom, the Indian team management doesn’t have the luxury of discarding an experienced player on a whim. Kohli and team management understand the vitality of such a player, ranging from batting at No 5 to DRS decisions to strategic inputs when the going gets tough.

Perhaps, then, it is time to buy into the Indian team’s strategic calculations for 2019 and leave Dhoni alone for the time being.

(Chetan Narula is a sports journalist, and has authored two books on cricket and Formula One. He can be reached at @chetannarula.)

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