Dhoni and his BattLing Style

There was a time when Parthiv kept wickets. Failed against Aussies. Dropped.

Came RD , Wall and WK , awesome performance in WC ( thought will become Adam Gilli someday ) ,Xtreme pressure and comes in Dhoni.

Xplosive, awesome and score against Lankans cemented his place, more than a batsman than a Wk. What could be more embarrassing than a wk resting in a match and Karthik keeping the same. But the ascent of Dhoni’s cameo innings and as a match finisher saw him captain the side with less than 100 ODI s to his kitty. Like young blood , he drew the first line. Came to Xplod, to ruin the innings , the natural game they say. But Kricket is not played on field , an equal stamina eats off field. This is where Dhoni needs to learn a few lessons, probably he has not heard the English term “Keep your words Soft , just in case u need to chew them some day “ .

Now with burden of captainship , and with success of T 20 , I have seen Dhoni play softly. His strike rate has been lower than Dravid at different points in the match, and that he has not talked about it. There is a talk that Dhoni has improved his game and learn to stay at wicket , but when I see him Test matches ,I see him struggling. And I wont term it as he deliberately want to play slow, but the fact is He is not able to either pace up the innings or score fast.

If ODI and T20 are batsman dominated, Test is one format which is defined well, both for batsman as well as bowlers.

People can remember Dhoni for a long time , and his success in ODI and T20 will again help him climb back to Test squad (in case he is made to sit out sometime) , but then we have seem VS and UV , having success in one format and jumping to other. But the transition is mostly not smooth , and marred by insecurity in cricketing career. With IPL , ICL and England announcing Cricket league soon , the careers of many people are at stake. Its very right time for Dhoni to understand that though team success can help him being in this team for sometime, but the day Indian team undergoes a bad patch , he will also be thrown off like Gangzz was.

There are a few lessons to learn for Dhoni , wrt captain from Azhar and Gangzz, wrt to batting from RD and Laxman and as an overall personality from SRT.



PS: personal opinion , and please NOM to Dhoni’s fan

shields up

As SA come to play a series in India, and with they commanding form they are in as they exhibited in the series against Bangladesh when they broke opening pair stand record held by Indians for half a century , I still think Sachin’s role has become bigger than the life , and suddenly with all the crisis on little master getting mammoth with each failing innings. No matter the umpiring decision , no matter the low scoring match , what is expected is a century. And to score against the bowling attack of Ntini , Morkel and Kallis wont be easy. It wont be as easy as it seems to defeat determined and over committed Africans who are strategically stronger than Indians in cricket field. Getting Sachin out early is a key gating for the project VICTORY for Africans, for over a period Sachin if not most destructible in plundering the bowlers , he still supplies enough tonic to youngsters to destruct the bowlers, and often takes matches away from opponents running singles and doubles.

But I fear. Yes , am scared. And also don’t know where to hide. Even after so many wonderful innings and commited to Indian Cricket for so long , he has to prove his worthiness every now and then. And as I said , people don’t look in importance of matches and say stats. When asked to look into stats they filter it to suit the needs. And this time with Sachin roaring loud and clear , and his blade yielding runs as its getting aged, the stakes are higher. One more time , we look to Sachin with flowers in right hand , and stone in second.

Sach is Lara

If we can term Sachin has batted with 10 others non performing players , then Lara Scores much more. India had trinity of SG , RD and SRT , but Lara has been more number of times lone scorer.

He has done Sachin in plundering the bowlers , Dravid in maintaining the crease , Ganguly in hitting the sixes , and Laxman in carrying the bat through the West Indian innings.

One thing LARA does not match at all is SRT is to bowl out critical over , be it final over of Titan cup , getting 5-32 Vs Aussies , or playing one half of fifth bowler for his quota of 5 overs …

Whatever be the case , the batting genius of Lara can not be questioned , so can be said for SRT with consistency embedded over the years.

And did I forget something , I dare not , so here it is :

PS : Personal opinion



Deepak Gupta

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