His eyes look at bit vacant these days. The stubble is nowlaced with grey and his answers, just words that don’t say much. Mahendra SinghDhoni, it should be said is not living a charmed life. The day he slammed theSri Lankan bowlers to help India win the world cup is now a distant memory.
Ten defeats and one victory have certainly got the criticsand the public raging against him. Experts of all shades have come out of the woodwork demanding his head.Balance and brevity is sadly absent. What is not being discussed however in detail is the fact that thenational team is a disconnected lot. The sense of unity that was apparentduring the world cup triumph is now a distant memory.
A day prior to thestart of the final test match in Nagpur, media report appeared highlighting theproblem Dhoni had with Gambhir’s attitude. It was pretty obvious during the first innings of India that Gambhir waskeen on a not out tag against his name. He failed to protect the tail-endersand did not hasten his pace of scoring runs as the innings began to wind down.It must be said that Dhoni’s field placing were a bit strange and coupled witha rather quixotic selection of players, it was a recipe for disaster.
In these troubling times for the national team, to makematter worse, the BCCI is quite confused as to what its goals vis a vis testcricket are. The financial nerve centre of the sport seems quite keen onmaintaining its position but has not expressed its desire to see India returnto the top spot in test cricket. The Ranji Trophy is conducted as anafterthought. The rule enforcing the presence of a grass on the pitch wasflouted by all the associations after the first round of matches and no one wasbrought to task. Cricketers participatein these matches without even once experiencing the conditions that they couldhave faced in a test match.
Indian spinners no longer bowl with guile or craft thatcould snare a batsman. Witness the poor bowling performance of the Indianspinners in Mumbai and Calcutta on a pitch where the ball turned square fromday one. In the eighties spinners not in the class of the magical four of anearlier generation could run through the opposition, sadly not anymore. AsBishan Singh Bedi revealed during the course of a chat with The Goan during hisvisit to Goa that the English team had spinners who could spin the ball withcontrol and batsmen who could bat. The Indian team he said was full of playersbanking on reputations that were made a long time ago.
As if this was not enough Mohinder Amarnath exposed themurky deals rampant in the BCCI by claiming how N Srinivasan the President ofthe BCCI had overruled the selectors unanimous call to sack Dhoni after theteam returned from the disastrous tour of Australia. The selectors, he said wanted a youngcaptain for the triangular one “day series that followed. In the media reporthe was quoted as saying “We selected the team for the triangular series,selected 17 players but we did not select the captain. The captain was selectedby somebody else”.
This rather ugly affair exposes the rotten state of affairsin Indian cricket. When Australia slumped miserably in the 80’s following theretirement of icons like Lillee, Marsh and Chappell the management in charge ofthe sport in that country worked hard at improving the quality of the nationalteam. It took a couple of years but they were back and how.
India sadly believes in the just sailing along. The fourthtest match could well be the last of another cricket great, Tendulkar the lastlink to a great team that took the top spot in test cricket. And what may weask is the plan of the Indian management to handle the big hole that willcertainly develop when he has gone. The absence of Dravid and Lakshman has hitthe team hard and Tendulkar could now be the final straw that breaks theback.
The media frenzy against Dhoni may be justified but we seemto be missing the larger picture. Indian cricket was helped along by theemergence of a number of great players who had the good fortune of playing togetherand helping the team move up the ladder. Today they are gone and the team willundoubtedly suffer. The future looksdark with batsmen of a certain mental attitude just not coming through. Coupledwith what Dravid said recently about the absence of skill, the situation canonly be imagined.
It has been a strange week for Indian sport. The nationalhockey team managed to generate some positive press with a heartwarming displayin the Champions Trophy tournament in Australia. After the display in the Olympics,the selectors bit the bullet and dropped the senior and brought in juniors andmade them work hard. For once it has to be said, perhaps it is time the BCCIlooked at the hockey federation and learnt something.
