The pressure is telling on Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The fearless fighter that Greg Chappell had trained to be India's 'Rambo' is beginning to feel the heat. Ten years of international cricket the last seven as India's captain is enough to break the strongest back. It is a miracle of sorts that Dhoni has carried on for so long, and with so much success, without succumbing to the pressures that come gift-wrapped with the Indian captaincy.
Dhoni succeeded because of his exceptional mental strength and an ice cool temperament that refused to boil over even in the most heated scenario. Nor did Dhoni ever go overboard with his success. Even two World Cup triumphs (2007 World T20 and 2011) failed to disturb Dhoni's equilibrium. He was simply happy to deliver as a player and captain. Success, for Dhoni, was like water on a duck's back. He would not get too despondent about failure. As India's Test failures abroad piled up, the pressure on Dhoni mounted. His philosophic explanations ('it is a process') after every loss began to wear thin.
A second successive Test series loss in England last year marked the beginning of Dhoni's downfall, culminating in his retirement from Test cricket after the third match Down Under. While it is perfectly understandable that Dhoni wants to preserve himself for another World Cup by giving up Test cricket, his lack of form in the shorter formats of the game has rendered his position quite vulnerable.
The lion-hearted Dhoni, who had promoted himself in the order ahead of an in-form Yuvraj Singh in the 2011 World Cup final and made history, has struggled for a while now. A quick look at his recent ODI record shows that his last match-winning knock came against Zimbabwe in the World Cup earlier this year. Having walked in at 92/4 with India chasing 288, Dhoni (85*) shared an unfinished stand of 196 with Suresh Raina, whose unbeaten 110 fetched him the man-of-the-match award.
Another unbeaten knock 45 off 56 balls had been enough to shepherd India to victory against the West Indies in the World Cup. The rest is a long and sorry tale of a man widely regarded as the best finisher in limited-overs cricket. Let alone finishing games, Dhoni isn't even getting the runs. He was a pale shadow of his dominant self in IPL-8, where Chennai Super Kings were twice outclassed by the Mumbai Indians in the knockout phase. A mere 372 runs from 17 innings, with an highest score of 53, is hardly the stuff that legends are made of.
Dhoni's uncharacteristic behaviour on the field against Bangladesh on Thursday was a clear reflection of a man who has lost the mental battle with himself. Poor Mustafizur Rahman bore the full impact of Dhoni's frustrations as the game slowly slipped out of India's hands. The shoving away of Mustafizur represented Dhoni's fight with inner demons which have been tormenting him since CSK got mired in the IPL betting and match-fixing scandal in 2013. With N Srinivasan out of the BCCI, Dhoni has lost the safety net that not only gave him immunity from selection issues but also the license to run the team the way he pleased.
By refusing to back the Indian team's stand in the ugly Anderson-Jadeja spat in Nottingham last year, Srinivasan had sent out a strong signal to Dhoni that he could no longer take things for granted. Ravi Shastri's appointment as the team director after the Test series loss in England further clipped Dhoni's wings. Retirement from Test cricket was Dhoni's way of cutting his losses. Neither Dhoni, nor his team, had bargained for losing to Bangladesh on Thursday. The alarm bells are ringing loud and clear. Another loss could spell doom for Dhoni, whose form and credibility are both at an all-time low.
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