Published: Mar 25, 2011, 10:39 AM (IST)
Edited: Mar 18, 2014, 01:15 PM (IST)
By Madan Mohan
Call it luck, call it brilliance, call it what you will, but its back. Mahendra Singh Dhoni somehow seems to be dealing the right cards again as India eventually pushed aside Australia comfortably in a closely fought encounter. What’s more, he’s now in a position to scoff, “I told you so” as some of his much-criticized choices appear to be vindicated.
Did he really mean it when he said he could press Superman (read Ravichndran Ashwin) into action at any stage in the tournament and wanted to give Piyush Chawla some confidence? Did Krishnamachari Srikkanth play God? We’ll never know, but Australia did not appear to have a strategy for Ashwin. He may not have hurt them with anything spectacular like a five wicket haul, though he did get two. But he conceded 52 where Chawla may have conceded nearly 70 and gave Dhoni the option of not bowling Munaf Patel in the slog overs. By not giving him a go in most of the league matches, Dhoni may have shielded Ashwin from overexposure.
Dhoni has also backed Yuvraj Singh persistently through times when the latter seemed to be suffering a crisis of confidence. One and all called for Yuvraj Singh’s head and it did push him out of the reckoning for a Test spot. Now, as he collects yet another Man of the Match award, Dhoni seems to have been vindicated. An in-form Yuvraj makes the Indian middle order significantly more imposing. It is not enough then to get the top order out of the way because Yuvraj can still take the game away from you. His success as a part-timer also allows Dhoni to get away with his four-bowler strategy.
Dhoni can also point to this match as vindication of his seven batsmen strategy. At five down, instead of the tail, Suresh Raina walked in and counter attacked to make the chase more comfortable just as the pressure had begun to mount. An argument could be made, of course, that only Australia’s new-found timidity against spin justified getting 32 overs off-spinners, a strategy which hadn’t quite worked against England and South Africa. The effectiveness of this strategy against Pakistan and, potentially, Sri Lanka, appears suspect. But, for the time being, Dhoni can have his chuckle.
Apart from being favoured possibly by fortune, Dhoni showed some signs of being proactive again and did not try to rigidly adhere to the script. He used Ashwin and Harbhajan Singh in the slog overs, veering from his justification for bowling the last over of the India-South Africa match off Ashish Nehra. He also gave Sachin Tendulkar the ball after a really long time. On the flipside, he didn’t tinker much with the batting order and that may have helped the batsmen chase down the target calmly.
Yet again, things have begun falling in place for Dhoni just when he needed it most. In all likelihood, his slips in the league stage will be all but forgotten if India wins the semi final clash with Pakistan. Whether Dhoni will lead the side in another one-day World Cup, I don’t know. But he may not leave with his reputation tattered from this one, after all.
At the other end, one man watched an era of domination and supremacy crumble some more. This time, Ricky Ponting appeared hard pressed to suppress his emotions. He had gained composure in time for the presentation ceremony, but the dying moments of the match betrayed his true feelings. This was not the exit a champion player would have hoped for, but Australia had to settle for its worst World Cup showing since the 1992 World Cup. He had finally struck form in what may have been his last World Cup match. While the Dhoni Era seems to have overcome a strong threat and may be set for a longer innings, the Ponting Era may well be on its last legs now.
The king is dead, long live the king!
(Madan Mohan, a 25-year old CA from Mumbai, is passionate about writing, music and cricket. Writing on cricket is like the icing on the cake)
