In the recent draft auction for the two new teams in the IPL, Mahendra Singh Dhoni was snapped up within seconds by the Sanjiv Goenka owned Pune franchise which shows that there has been no erosion at
In the recent draft auction for the two new teams in the IPL, Mahendra Singh Dhoni was snapped up within seconds by the Sanjiv Goenka owned Pune franchise which shows that there has been no erosion at all in his equity — as a player or brand ambassador. However, he enters perhaps the most challenging phase of his career now.
India’s tour of Australia next month (ODIs and T20s) are crucial for Dhoni. He returns to the side as captain and will be under close scrutiny – by fans and selectors – about his ability to perform as well as deliver results.
This is a brief tour, but opens up a very demanding three-month window for him, climaxing in the World Twenty20 Championship to be played at home, with some other limited overs matches against Sri Lanka in between.
In home conditions, Australia are arguably the most formidable side in the game today as they proved so brilliantly in the World Cup earlier this year. India, knocked out by the Aussies in the semis of that tournament, have revenge to seek, but the hardship quotient of doing will not be lost on Dhoni & Co.
Sri Lanka are in the process of rebuilding a team without Kumar Sangakarra and Mahela Jayawardene which is a monumental task. But they will have the benefit of being the underdogs: little to lose, everything to gain.
The onus to win in all these contests will be on India, but most so in the WorldT20 in March. The shortest format everybody agrees is a lottery, the outcome unpredictable. There has been a different winner in each of the preceding tournaments. But that will not impress the Indian fans who will expect victory, nothing less.
This will put the team under enormous pressure, and obliquely also the selectors. But the captain will be under the greatest duress for he has to prove his credentials to both constituencies. How Dhoni fares as batsman and captain could well determine his future in the game.
There have been murmurs that Dhoni is seeing the World T20 as his swansong. The fact that a biopic on him is scheduled to release at the time of this tournament has added to the speculation.
His sudden decision to quit Test cricket about 12 months further fortifies the theory of those who believe that Dhoni might suddenly up and out. That he became a major international star after winning the inaugural World T20 in 2007 establishes a strong connection for a high-voltage exit goes the argument.
But while he is unconventional — and not one to let anybody get even an inkling of how his mind is working, this is not something I subscribe to. If he had just wanted glory, Dhoni could have signed off after the 50-over World Cup earlier this year; more so because India had done extremely well.
I think he quit Test cricket because he didn’t see that challenging him enough. One can argue with his priorities, but it can also be argued in his favour that he didn’t linger on needlessly once his heart was not in that game.
However, this has also straitjacketed Dhoni into a limited overs specialist. While this was his own preference and allows him to concentrate on two instead of three formats, it also restricts his options to stay alive in Indian cricket.
This is the burden that he has to come to terms with. There are critics and experts who don’t find the split captaincy desirable in Indian cricket. Virat Kohli’s successes in recent Test series has only increased their number.
Dhoni’s prowess in limited overs cricket, of course, remains undiminished. Kohli himself said that he still has a lot to learn from his senior and Team Director Ravi Shastri finds Dhoni’s position under no threat.
But as Dhoni would surely know by now, it doesn’t take long for sentiment to change dramatically in Indian cricket. He is also 34: not old, yet a vulnerable age for cricketers when form and fitness is assessed almost on a match-by-match basis.
From here, Dhoni necessarily has to excel — as player and captain — to convince everybody that he still retains the mojo to play at the international level; perhaps till the 2019 World Cup. Auditing for that begins from the second week of January 2016.
