Time has come to sack Dhoni as captain and Test player

Tags: India tour of England, 2014, India, England, Mahendra Singh Dhoni

Published on: Jul 18, 2014

The first day of the opening day at Lord’s between India and England saw the visitors’ worst fears come true. A green top was prepared for England’s fast bowler to exploit the same

The first day of the opening day at Lord’s between India and England saw the visitors’ worst fears come true. A green top was prepared for England’s fast bowler to exploit the same. The hosts won the toss and inserted India in, and the bowlers did the rest. There was a lot of tension between the two sides following the controversy surrounding Ravindra Jadeja and James Anderson going into the Test. Anderson, in particular, would have been keen to make headlines for the right reasons. He bowled excellently to put India on the back foot from the very beginning of the Test.


While Anderson and Stuart Broad bowled splendidly to make great use of the surface that was offered to them, India’s batsmen lacked the technique to survive on the pitch. Shikhar Dhawan had no idea how to deal with the moving ball. This is the second Test in a row that Dhawan has failed to score. If one takes away his 115 and 98 in New Zealand, he has not done anything of note. In fact, even in the two Tests against West Indies at home, he could not convert his starts. If Dhawan doesn’t stand up and deliver in the second innings as well, India could seriously consider giving Gautam Gambhir a go.


The conditions may have been extremely tough for the Indian batsmen on the opening day at Lord’s, but considering the number of wickets they lost, they may already have fallen well behind in the Test. So many of their batsmen got 20s, but all of them fell immediately after that. If only a couple of them had survived the tough times and had carried on, the Indians could have breathed easy. But that wasn’t to be the case. Some lot of dismissals came via great bowling, but the manner in which a couple of wickets fell were extremely disappointing.


It was the dismissal of skipper M S Dhoni that was most exasperating of all. The Indian captain may have scored an 80 in the opening Test at Trent Bridge, but before and after that he has been exceedingly poor away from home. The manner in which he was out at Lord’s on Thursday was another stark reminder of his lack of prowess while playing away from home. It has been three years since India’s disastrous tour of England in 2011. Since then, there has been no improvement in Dhoni’s batting. It is too late in the day for Dhoni to change his technique. So, the time has come for Dhoni to be sacked as Test captain and player as well.


Ravindra Jadeja is another batsman who needs to be shown the door soon. Although he has three triple hundreds in domestic cricket, he has done nothing of note in the number of Tests that he has played, and he has featured in quite a few of them now, but his batting has been nothing short of pathetic. The time has come for India to look beyond Jadeja for the number seven spot. Just one day into the Lord’s Test, and plenty of old wounds have been opened up as far as India are concerned.


--By A Cricket Analyst

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