The MS Dhoni debate: Is a legendary past overshadowing mediocre present?

He did come, he did see, he did conquer, but now Dhoni has sprinted past them. Yes, he remains a lynchpin behind the stumps, Virat Kohli’s robin, but is he the problem to India’s middle-order woes?

Wait. Let us jog back, not very far behind, to London, Lord’s. The hum, the buzz, the history, all fading away, slowly being pushed away. MS Dhoni is on strike, no cheers, no frenetic howling, but an uneasy silence, eventually leading to a round of boos.

File picture of MS Dhoni (PA Images via Getty Images)

England spinner Adil Rashid tosses a ball up, it lands on a length, Dhoni comes forward, with a straight bat and defends the ball back down the pitch. The boos intensify, Dhoni with his greying beard looks around, then adjusts his gloves and bunts the next ball straight to short extra cover. India were chasing 323, Dhoni was at the crease, these situations have faced him before, but Lord’s was different this time.

He meandered aimlessly to 37 in 59 balls and then walked back with some vigour back to the pavilion, shadow practicing a forward defence.

India then land in Dubai, no Kohli, but enough firepower in the top order to win the Asia Cup. However, Dhoni, the finisher, the world-beater was never convincing, in a tricky situation when he forced the opposition bowlers to blink and create blunders, he looked elsewhere. 67 balls for 36 runs, India in a hole, Dhoni walks away from the scene.

Now, this is no longer an isolated problem, it has been so for quite some time now. He did come, he did see, he did conquer, but now Dhoni has sprinted past them. Yes, he remains a lynchpin behind the stumps, Virat Kohli’s robin, but is he the problem to India’s middle-order woes?

Numbers yell out a response, and it is a boisterous yes!

Dhoni has been a colossus in ODI cricket, his legacy is a glittering one, but are the selectors too blinded by his past?

Since April 2015, he has played in 50 innings, scored 1624 runs at an average of 42.73 and with a strike rate of 81.52. On an average he breaches the 30 mark in every 2.82 innings.

At a time when the middle overs often determine the course of the match, these numbers are mediocre at best.

‘We have nothing to prove, we compete with ourselves’: A line which is flung all over the place to establish greatness.

So, we compare Dhoni with Dhoni. From April 2011 to March 2015, the man played in 62 innings, scored 2450 runs at an average of 64.47 and with a strike rate of 93.47.

There is a definite picture being painted, a picture which is few shades paler, a picture which is yelling out a story. Who is reading them then?

Dinesh Karthik, the man who makes a comeback, blinks and is booted out, can consider himself desperately unlucky. He has forever remained under the shadow of Dhoni, and even now, when he has better numbers, he will lead one of the sides in the Deodhar Trophy.

In 6 innings this year, the Tamil Nadu man has scored 167 runs in 6 innings at a strike rate of 73.56. Out of the picture.

In 10 innings this year, MS Dhoni, has laboured to 225 runs at a strike rate of 67.36. Number 1 wicket-keeper as far as the chief selector is concerned!

What is the scenario the world over. In the last two years, ODI cricket has become a different beast. It has become just an extrapolation of T20 cricket and England are leading the charge.

India, despite their ranking, have chinks in their armour. If the belligerence of the top order is ignored, there is a massive gap which needs to be addressed. And in many ways, Dhoni is the problem. Other batsmen have been juggled around, Dhoni remains the constant.

Strike-rates of wicket-keepers who average over 40 and have played more than 20 innings over the last two years:

Jos Buttler 111.3

Quinton de Kock 99.8

Mushfiqur Rahim 84.1

MS Dhoni 79.6

There is this theory being floated around that we need to tone down our expectations from Dhoni. The reason is never given if we can tone down our expectations, what else is left there to be served?

Stop again. Let us jog back again. Donning the yellow jersey, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, led CSK to an IPL title, again. He belted 455 runs in 16 matches, it was just 6 runs short of his most prolific season in any IPL season.

He faced 302 balls, only the third time he faced more than 300 balls in a season. He took charge of almost every innings he sauntered out to. He did not wait for the bowlers to blink, he forced them to surrender, he did not want to take the match till the last over, he ensured the match never lasted that long, A new wing of sorts, a false bubble, it seems now!

“So, it was more like quicksand: the more I flutter, the deeper I would go. So, I said that I want to make a team where we bat deep, that gives me a chance to bat up the order, and to me up the order doesn’t mean I want to bat at three, four or five; it’s the number of overs [left in the innings],” he said after the tournament.

Perhaps a solution, perhaps just another theory, but as has been the case with MS Dhoni, nothing is ever certain, nothing is what it seems.

As Mark Twain so effectively put it: The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause....