How the current crop of the Indian team is missing Sourav Ganguly and why MS Dhoni is India’s worst away captain holding zero value to the team.
Ten losses in the last thirteen away matches as captain and being hurled the ignominy of disdain again and again. Where losses are becoming regularity and wins away from home have dried up. Perhaps being ignorant is not so much shame, as being unwilling to learn. As the Indian ‘captain’ Mahendra Singh Dhoni attacked for about half an hour on the fourth day morning before going back to his fanciful field placements, it’s not perhaps much surprise as Brendon McCulum produced the innings of his career which not only saved the Kiwis in at the Basin Reserve, the swashbuckler ensured the Kiwis win the series 1-0 and make sure the Indians return with nothing from the island country.
A captain is only as good as his team and a good captain certainly makes his team better. They say poor form is perhaps an indication of something really special to arrive, yet there has been no such signs from Dhoni’s shivering blade. Neither has he tries to come up the batting order when the team has been in disarray, nor has the ‘lucky one’, as I like to call him, has to come to his side’s rescue even once during these hidings. The captaincy of Dhoni has been laughable at best. Losing away from home has become a habit and as crictics put out, you might be Lions at your den, but purring away from home, makes a lot of difference. And now comes the news that Dhoni has been ruled out of the Asia Cup in Bangladesh because of a side strain. Virat Kohli will lead India in HIS absence as Dinesh Karthik slots in as the replacement wicketkeeper.
Now, as former Indian captains saying Dhoni must step down from the captaincy role, we feel India is missing someone like Dada, the one and only Sourav Ganguly. Some term his weakness against short deliveries as a perennial problem. Some had been questioning his attitude towards the game following his disastrous lean patch. Critics were urging him to relinquish the captaincy so that he could concentrate on his batting. Termed as controversy’s favorite son, Sourav Ganguly, as always, decided to let his bat do the talking. Remember the epic knock of the match saving 144 as Brisbane which was the cynosure of all eyes, as India pivoted their unforgettable series Down under. Dada always leads the team from the front, made sure he answered his critics back as they went hiding.
If the World Cup was not less than a year away, I would have agreed that Dhoni needed to be removed as captain, was what the former Indian captain was quoted as saying. Of late Dhoni’s captaincy has been laughable at best, oppositions thriving under every opportunity. In pressure situations when you need men around the bat to make things happen, our captain has men in the ring. With easy singles on offer and no pressure on the batsmen, they say, Cricket is battle of mind games, and there are no prizes here for guessing who won the mind games. I’ve heard there are two types of captains; one, who wait for things to happen. The other breed, though, make things happen. Sadly Dhoni falls in neither and is lost in thought to make things happen, before they are actually out of his control. What he thinks is only a figment of our imagination. It’s hard to believe that this very guy won us the World Cup after a long wait.
Surely India needs a captain like Dada, who with his never say die attitude and aggression always kept the opposition on the edge and kept them guessing with his subtle bowling changes and field placements. Dhoni might have won a lot of accolades for winning the World Cup, but when it comes to handling captaincy, there is no one better than Sourav Ganguly.
