The last 18 months have been nothing short of a catastrophe for the Indian cricket team. They’ve lost a Test series at home for the first time in eight years and will finally be forced to accept the fact that the whitewashes at England and Australia weren’t just aberrations.
It’s a war-like situation. The walls are crumbling; the generals, majors and even the defence mechanism, everything is falling apart.
Seeing the way India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni rotates his bowlers in Test matches, one cannot but feel sometimes that he starts counting in his mind "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor . . ." looking at each of his bowling options before throwing the ball to the bowler who ends up with the word 'Thief.’
The 32nd over of India’s first innings and effectively the 80th over of Day Two of the fourth and final Nagpur Test was in progression. Earlier in the day, England had fought back from a wobbling 199 for five to a respectable 330 all out on a pitch that begged to bore.
Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni is having the roughest ride as Test captain since taking over from Anil Kumble in 2008, reaching a dead end as his side continues to struggle in whites.
Former selector Mohinder Amarnath has openly stated that Mahendra Singh Dhoni needs to be removed from Test captaincy but his former teammate Anshuman Gaekwad believes that the main reason behind India losing is not poor captaincy and that replacing Dhoni will not solve the inherent problems.
Amol Muzumdar, one of the greatest Indian batsmen to have never played for the country, said a few months back in an exclusive interview to CricketCountry that the transition phase of two years would be tough for Indian cricket.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s captaincy faces its biggest acid test as his side has to defend its honour at home. The eight successive defeats overseas marred his otherwise fantastic record, but a likely home series loss to England could prove to see the coup de grace.
Former India selector Mohinder Amarnath has criticised the Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, a day after the latter ruled out giving up captaincy. Amarnath said that Dhoni is nobody to decide about his future in the team.
For a young man with an awkward technique, Mahendra Singh Dhoni s ascent seems almost fictional. It has been a heartening story of a man who has been defying the odds to make a mark on the world s biggest stage. Nishad Pai Vaidya unravels the aura of Dhoni s story on the latter s 31st birthday today.