MS Dhoni’s presence will help Virat Kohli

Two major challenges onfront Mahendra Singh Dhoni next month when the limited overs matches against South Africa get underway: he must ensure that India get a winning ‘momentum’ going into the Test series follows and — perhaps more important — he must keep his own relevance in Indian cricket intact.

The first aspect is actually a no-brainer. The Test series against South Africa is arguably India’s toughest at home in the last decade. Hashim Amla’s team is ranked number 1 in the world. Moreover, the Proteas haven’t lost an overseas series since 2006.

To prevent them from trampling all over India, the home team must seize the advantage early. That can come through winning the T20 (three matches) and IDI (5 matches) series’ that precede the Tests.

In both limited overs formats, India enjoy a better ranking than South Africa, which is a boon. The argument that performance in one format does not influence performance in another has some merit. But it is hardly unknown that form and a psychological boost can be carried forward from one format to another.

We saw that happen in the recent contests between Australia and England. After winning the Ashes against all odds, England almost pulled off another upset in the ODIs too before losing narrowly 2-3.

From a side that had got packed off unceremoniously from the World Cup earlier this year, this is a clear signal what grabbing the early momentum can mean in a long-drawn, multi-format contest. With his vast experience, Dhoni perhaps knows more about this than any other player in contemporary cricket.

It is in the second aspect however — of retaining his enormous value to Indian cricket — that Dhoni’s performances will be under critical scrutiny this season. And he has only the limited overs formats to pass the test.

Stellar players usually have the buffer of one format to help them through a crisis in another. After his sudden decision to give up the Test captaincy mid-way through the series against Australia last season, Dhoni has narrowed the yardstick by which he can be assessed.

This begins with the limited overs’s series against South Africa, through a 5-match ODI series against Australia, a 3-match T20 series against Sri Lanka and climaxes in the World T20 Championship in March next year.

There are two ways in which Dhoni will be measured: as a player and as captain. It might be that his form remains excellent, but India do not do too well in the limited overs contests, in which case his captaincy could be at stake or he might lose the motivation to continue further.

The gravest threat is that if he shows both poor form and results, he could find himself marginalized completely. Purely from a cricketing point of view, I don’t see this as a major problem for Dhoni though.

Few players in the history of the game have been more adept at the limited overs formats than him as he has shown at every stage of his career, and more pertinently even during the World Cup.

In my opinion, he remains not only India’s best player in T20s and ODIs, but is also so completely at ease as captain in these formats that an Indian team without Dhoni seems inconceivable even today. Indeed, I believe that his presence in the ODI team will help Kohli mature as player and person.

But psychologically, the situation for Dhoni is piquant. This is the first full season in eight years when he is not the ‘India’ captain in the conventional sense of the term. That accolade goes to the person leading in Test matches, currently Virat Kohli, fresh from his first series win against Sri Lanka.

Some believe Kohli should also be given charge in limited overs cricket. There is some logic in this undeniably. While several countries have experimented successfully with the two-captain theory, India have usually stuck to one: except when Dhoni was captain in limited overs cricket and Anil Kumble in Tests for a year.

But that was seen as Dhoni’s apprenticeship, which he fulfilled with great success. Traditionally the ODI captaincy is seen as a stepping-stone to the Test captaincy. In Dhoni’s case, it has been a kind of reverse migration. This puts greater onus on him to make his presence – which will now be intermittent than regular – matter to an extent that he gives the selectors, fans and teammates no scope for question.