Dhoni’ Dilemma

A lot to ponder over

Mahendra Singh Dhoni has a lot to think about before India takes field against South Africa on 12th March 2011 at Nagpur. He has got this unenviable task of settling the demons of his side’s hapless bowling performance against England. Unfortunately, the games against Ireland and Netherland are not going to help him much in finding the right answer, for, theoretically, India could win those matches with its batting strength alone.

But it’s going to be a different matter all together against stronger opponents, during more important matches. If we are unable to defend 339 runs against a team who notwithstanding its Ashes form, is not considered the best of sides in the limited overs format, how are we going to do so against top ranked sides in the later stage of this tournament?

Now, Dhoni has always preferred to go with four specialist bowlers, which he seems to have inherited from the age-old Indian practice that has been prevalent since time immemorial. This is primarily because India never had that elusive all rounder at their disposal since Kapil Dev’s retirement. Occasionally we have had guys like Irfan Pathan, who rather than providing a long-term solution, have flattered to deceive after some amount of early promise. And because we have had to deal with quite a few batting collapses intermittently, we have not been too inclined towards including a specialist bowler in place of a batsman. As a result, we have had to be satisfied with, batsmen who could turn their arm over to fill in the fifth bowler’s slot. And that has worked for us most of the times. But the question to be asked is, how long? It could well be a blessing in disguise that the tied match against England has posed that question right at the outset.

Let us try to answer that for Dhoni:

Option 1: Stick to the same combination, try Ashwin or Nehra in place of Piyush

Experience could prove handy

Now, if Dhoni goes for this option, which looks more likely at this moment, his reasoning could be this - it’s too early to change a long successful strategy only after a single reversal. We must also be mindful of the fact that our field placing was woeful during that match. We were only following the ball rather than being proactive. If we can tie that loose end up, this four-bowlers-three-part-timer-strategy might look formidable yet again. The upside of sticking to this combination is that we are that extra bit protected against the ever round the corner batting collapse, and we would also be able to maintain the on paper mighty look of our lineup. The downside is that, if one specialist bowler has an off day, It becomes that much more difficult for the part-timers to fill in those extra overs. This weakness could be exploited by better oppositions, as we saw in the match against England.

In my opinion, even if we go with this combination, we have to have three pace bowlers and only one spinner, since all our part timers are spin bowlers. In a spinning track, even Yuvraj or Pathan could be as effective as anybody. And in matches like the one we tied, it would be always harder to hit a pace bowler out of the park for sixes in the closing overs. Had there been a seamer to bowl that penultimate over in place of Piyush Chawla, we still could have ended up in the winning side.

Option 2: Play an additional bowler in place of a batsman

Yuvi could be dropped

If Dhoni finally plans to get the balance right by going for this option, a further confusion awaits him here. Who does he drop? Virat Kohli could be a natural choice. But as rightly pointed out by Rajiv during a recent conversation, if there comes a bad batting day, only guys like Gambhir and Kohli are more likely to bail you out of that, not our Yuvraj or Pathan. If today the line up looks strong, it’s because the former two are in red hot form, and hence it would be a mistake to leave Kohli out. Now dropping Pathan would not be advisable because he is a game changer, who could turn a few matches around for you, all by himself, not to forget his bowling. And the fact that he is in some serious form, can’t be ignored. That leaves us with Yuvraj, who is still struggling with the bat, and you would most definitely not pick him for his bowling alone. The matter further worsens when you do decide to drop Yuvraj, because, yes, you preferred Pathan over Yuvi due to the reason mentioned above, but how about Raina? Could you include him in place of Pathan? Would that be better, as he is more reliable than Pathan and is in better form compared to Yuvraj? Perhaps yes. That would give a completely newish look Indian one-day side, which despite of being logical, I am not very comfortable with. Forget about me, it doesn’t matter, but would Dhoni be comfortable? I doubt.

We will have to wait and watch.