India's man for all seasons of T20 defeats

Mahendra Singh Dhoni is to be pitied more than censured even if his recent run of inventing ways to rain T20 defeats upon his limited-overs Team India must have hit another high that evening too in Florida. In his younger days, maybe a decade ago, the ‘’finest captain’’ and “greatest finisher” may have found a way to hit that ball out of the ground.

Even five years ago he would at least have managed to steal a single off that ball to revive India’s chance at least in the Super Over. How he managed to scoop that ball off the outer edge to silly point makes the point about how he manages to steal defeats from the jaws of victory.

Dhoni claims he is using his brain too much in T20 looking for logical solutions. But then this cricket was always about a bit of madness, like in the way he chose a rookie pace bowler to deliver the death over in the famous 2007 T20 worlds final. In the last few years, it’s his brain work that may have been letting Team India down in limited-overs cricket, particularly T20, certainly so after 2013 when India won the Champions Trophy, the last big international triumph in white ball cricket.

Indian cricket is notorious for its sentimental attachment to the greats. If Kapil spent a couple of years beyond his sell-by date and Sachin Tendulkar did the same while searching for his century of centuries, why should Dhoni not expect to lead India into, say, the 2027 World Cup? Logic would dictate the same rule should apply to all the Indian cricket greats and we have named possibly three of the 10 biggest names of the last 84 years since C.K. Nayudu was made substitute captain of India by the Maharajah of Porbander after exchanging cables right through the night with the cricket board and the Maharajah of Patiala back home.

Living in a time warp helps considerably, as tend to do in India. There is nothing to be held against the geniuses of their age whose creativity lives on centuries after them. Sport, however, has this ugly habit of moving on with the ages, or even with age. Even the invincible know it. Usain Bolt could win the 200m at Tokyo if he so wishes and remains in training. But, in his heart of hearts, he knows he would struggle to beat Andre de Grasse or some other emerging world class young sprinter in the 100m. The shortest distances remain the biggest challenge because you need speed; the same with T20 and presumably ODIs played with 50 overs to a side.

The same logic of succession in sport applies to why P.V.Sindhu will be a far better bet in Tokyo four years hence than Saina Nehwal. We know Saina was a champion, a trendsetter who showed what fit and young Indian athletes could achieve in badminton, a game that demands fitness and agility even more than game skills. She was the Dhoni of her times, but today sadly denied by the ageing process and certain proneness to injuries. If young and eagle–eyed shooters come along, they may crack the Olympic competition, but not even Abhinav Bindra can defy time. This is the truth of sport. There are exceptions, of course, but the patience is not there anymore to try out any theories on champions being champions, etc.

Indian cricket can extend Dhoni’s assignments to 2040 if it so wishes. The world of sport has grown so much in the last few years that people may even have stopped caring because they have so much more live sport to keep them entertained. This is not like the old days when the Indian cricket captaincy was the most discussed topic in the country, if not the cricket world.  If Dhon is the one who must lead the charge of the Team India brigade into the Valley of Death, so be it.

Who is better qualified to have led India in all the T20 worlds defeats since 2007 than Dhoni, the man who led us to the promised T20 land? After all, what is a decade in the slow moving world of cricket? The skipper will still be drawing the positives from these defeats and aiming for that big win again.