The question first cropped up three years ago: Should India pick Mahendra Singh Dhoni for the World Cup? In the year leading up to that tournament in Australia and New Zealand, Dhoni averaged 30, with a highest score of 52. In the past year, Dhoni has averaged 30, with just one fifty. Overall he continues to average over 50 though, and there is something to be said for experience.
As the team begins to take shape with the World Cup eight months and many one-day matches away, India will have to grapple with the Dhoni question again. Is he the number five batsman they need, or is it time to get in a youngster early so he gets in a few games before India take on South Africa in their inaugural tie? The World Cup is no place for experimenting or trying out new players; you do not build a team for the future there, you go with the team most likely to win.
Lot more white ball cricket
These are early days yet. Indians will play more white ball cricket than red, as home series against the West Indies and tours of Australia and New Zealand follow the Asia Cup. Then there is the IPL. Such is the international schedule that players have greater opportunities to get themselves into form in the shorter formats than in Tests.
Dhoni will turn 38 during the World Cup, but his fitness is not in question, nor is his work, both physical and mental, behind the stumps. All players like to believe that good days are just one innings away, sometimes one over or one stroke away.
It would be a radical move to drop Dhoni, but if that is the worst case scenario, then the team must be prepared. Dhoni is still the best wicketkeeper in the format, and has the support of his captain Virat Kohli. Even the chairman of selectors has said that he sees no reason why Dhoni should not be playing in the World Cup.
India’s strange reluctance to experiment with personnel and positions of late has meant that Dhoni has not got enough opportunities to bat higher up (former captain Sourav Ganguly always insisted that he should be at five anyway).
The Kanhai example
Top players get thrown into the deep at either end of their careers — at the start, and then again towards the finish. The best survive both tests. Dhoni has the example of Rohan Kanhai before him, although the game has changed much since that first World Cup in 1975.
Kanhai, the great stroke-player, made a crucial half-century in the final, an age-appropriate innings if one might call it that (he was 39), while the younger Clive Lloyd blasted a brilliant century to see the West Indies home.
If Dhoni the batsman does not fit into the team — which might be a strange thing to say of a player who has over 10,000 runs in the format — then his wicketkeeping alone will not be sufficient. Dinesh Karthik and Rishabh Pant are in the queue to take over, but they too should make it as batsmen.
Pant’s keeping in England alternated between the brilliant and the ordinary — although he was up against the vagaries of a ball that often swung after passing the batsman. In the shorter formats, consistency is the more valued quality. Pant might break into the team as a batsman, which might help the balance.
A left field selection might be K.L. Rahul as wicketkeeper, which will ensure that one batting slot in the middle is taken care of. It was the theory India used when namesake Rahul Dravid was asked to don the gloves, something he did not personally enjoy but buckled down to in the interests of the team.
More than the youngsters trying to break into the squad or establishing themselves, it is Dhoni who will be the focus of India’s preparation over the next few months.
Ideal solution
The ideal solution would be for him to rediscover his touch and carry that form into the World Cup. That way the team will reap the benefit of his vast experience and his ability to keep things under control when things are beginning to get out of hand. In the shorter formats, Kohli has no problem consulting a senior man, which can only be good for the team.
If Dhoni doesn’t give clear evidence of his famed gift of marshaling India’s batting as in the past, the selectors will have to take a call. When in doubt, selectors are usually happy to go with the status quo; but occasionally they do take a leap in the dark, and make unpopular decisions.
Senior players are often allowed to bow out at a time and place of their choosing, and sometimes selectors compromise by picking both candidates (if two are in the fray) and leaving it to the captain and the tour management to take the final call.
All eyes on Dhoni, therefore, as the countdown begins…
