Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the players who earned more honors, or garnered more laurels for Indian team has been playing for Team India since 12 years. Started off with the world cup in T20 Internationals, he led India in winning several other crucial trophies all the way which was usually unexpected and never earned before.
Once again after a while, the discussion on Dhoni’s retirement has come out after India lost the T20 match to New Zealand yesterday. At that point of the match when Dhoni is on strike, India needed more than 10-12 runs an over, the former captain struggled to get going and thereby put pressure on his partner, who was looking good for a three-figure score.
It was pretty clear that Kohli seemed to have felt the pressure as he played an uncharacteristic shot and got dismissed for 65 in the 17th over. Though Dhoni hit a few big ones towards the end, they were never going to take India past the line as the required run rate had shot up beyond India’s grasp.
After all, now that, it is pretty clear that Dhoni is not playing as he did before. There are certain comments on taking him down, which were clearly on screen with the slip in his striking position. Considering the poor form of the 36-year-old Dhoni former Indian players VVS Laxman, Ajit Agarkar and Akash Chopra have opined their ideas on his retirement.
Talking about the same, Agarkar has said, “India needs to look at other options in T20 cricket for sure. ODI cricket, at the moment, they [Team India] seem to be happy with the role he [Dhoni] is playing. When he was captain, it was fine. But as a pure batsman, will India miss him? I don’t think so. In T20 cricket, it’s a lot easier to make the transition. There is enough experience apart from MS Dhoni now.”
He added: “It’s not necessarily because of an innings tonight. He’s been batting like this for a while. In T20I cricket, it’s easier to move on. Sometimes the youngsters can do the job as well. It would have been still difficult to chase down that score. You had a chance if MS got going immediately. That’s been his problem for a while. He takes a little bit of time, but T20 cricket, there is no time. I heard people saying he should bat at different positions, but he came into bat in the 10th over. How many times do you get to bat 10 overs in a T20I game? Enough time for any batsman.”
Post the match, legendary batsman VVS Laxman said, “In T20s, MS Dhoni’s role is at No 4. He requires more time to get his eye in and then do the job. But today [Saturday] was a classic example because when Virat Kohli was batting, Dhoni had to give the strike to Kohli. Kohli’s strike rate was 160, MS Dhoni’s strike rate was 80. That’s not good enough when India was chasing a mammoth total.”
He added: “I still feel it’s time for MS Dhoni to give youngsters a chance in T20 format. It will be an opportunity for a youngster to blossom and get confidence playing international cricket. He is definitely an integral part of ODI cricket.”
Following the huge criticism laid on MS Dhoni, it is death over specialist Bhuvaneshwar who became the first to back the former captain cool. While conveying this, he has taken a sly dig on both for criticising MS Dhoni.
“We (as a team) don’t think much about that. You look over his records, he is a legend and whatever has he done, he did it for the country. So no one in the team has any doubt about him,” he said.
On the other hand, when asked about his pretty better form in recent days, he said, “Batting is a department I’ve always been confident about. Especially in Tests and have always tried to improve in ODIs. You always need an inning to bat and gain confidence. Like I batted against Sri Lanka, that inning helped me gaining confidence and our batting coach Sanjay Bangar also helped me a lot.”