MS Dhoni must shrug off disappointment

It can’t be pleasant to begin the season with a defeat, but as the team reassembles in Cuttack for the second game, Mahendra Singh Dhoni need not fret too much over what happened in the first T20 at Dharamsala. With a little luck, the result could well have been different. One poor over by Axar Patel — in which he was clobbered for 22 runs by J P Duminy — gave South Africa the ‘Big Leap’ in strike rate they were seeking for 15 overs.

If the 15th over brought South Africa back into the game, the 17th pushed India over the precipice. Duminy was given a reprieve when what looked like a plumb lbw appeal against him was turned down and there was no looking back for the South Africans after that.

In his post-match conference, Dhoni highlighted the umpiring decision which went against his side, but he can’t let the disappointment fester. As the most experienced player from his side, he would be the first to accept that in the past his side too has benefited from umpiring errors.

From a cricketing point of view, any excuse would also be unfair to the massive effort put up by the South Africans in chasing down 200 runs. However flat the pitch, an asking rate of 10 runs per over is very, very stiff. That this was achieved for the loss of only three wickets redounds to the batting strength of the visiting team.

Duminy’s explosive innings was obviously the mainstay in South Africa’s daring run chase. For the first half of the match, it appeared that nothing could upstage Rohit Sharma’s dazzling century. But Duminy went two sixes and a step further in winning the match even if he did not score a ton.

Even in defeat, however, there were some encouraging takeaways for Dhoni. The batting was superb, with Rohit obviously doing the star turn, but the others making significant contributions too. Only Dhawan and Rayudu got low scores, but both were unfortunate to be run out.

Nine matches out of ten, a team scoring 199 would win in T20 and if India can approach such score consistently (if the pitches play true, of course), they should have more ticks in the credit rather than debit column.

If the bowling holds out some concern, it is largely because most members in the attack are inexperienced. The two who came under  pressure at Dharamsala were S Arvind (making his debut) and Axar Patel, playing only his third T20 international. Neither, however, performed so badly as to cause alarm.

The argument that Raina could have been given the 17th over instead of Axar is derived from hindsight, when all solutions are easy to find. Let’s look at it another way: if Raina had been given a bowl and hit for 22 runs, Dhoni would have got indicted for not continuing with Axar!

I think the composition of the team was right too in terms of balance and variety. There can obviously be a case for playing Ajinkya Rahane instead of Rayudu and Harbhajan Singh or Amit Mishra instead of Patel. But these are marginal issues which tend to come under greater scrutiny only post-facto.

In such situations I believe the captain (and team management’s) preference is not just paramount, but to be trusted. What’s significant going ahead is that the reserves are equally good and interchangeability of players is not a major issue.

But going ahead, Dhoni (and India) must show greater resourcefulness of they are to win this three-match series. In the ICC T20 rankings, India (at no. 5) are one place ahead of South Africa, but the two teams are equal on rating points (113).

This parity was kind of corroborated by the neck-and-neck contest in the match at Dharamsala. Clearly also, playing at home is not such a huge advantage in this format, even more so when you consider that most of the South Africans play in the IPL every year.

What this means is that the team that holds its nerve better will win. If there is anything that India need to absorb from their rivals after the first match it is the ‘never say die’ spirit as shown by Duminy.