During the IPL and today in the warmup match against New Zealand, we saw M S Dhoni promote himself up the order to No. 3. His record has been inconsistent. Sometimes it has worked and at other times, like today, it hasn’t. This has happened quite a few times that I get a feeling that Dhoni is being too clever instead of thinking strategically and long-term.
To be a great captain, you have to produce good results consistently. One way to do this is to work hard with the team to help them understand their roles better, improve their skills, analyze the team’s and individual playing styles and try to make gains in every aspect of the game. This will bring in results that keep getting incrementally better. It is not glamorous and it requires a lot of patience.
The other route is to try different tactics. In cricket, that means experimenting with different batting orders, bowlers, fielding tactics and so on. When you are the underdog, this can work out spectacularly like Martin Crowe in the 1992 World Cup or the Sri Lankans in the 1996 World Cup. The trick here is that you understand your weaknesses and your strengths well and exploit them in such a way that teams playing the conventional way cannot defeat you. Man-for-man, every team could be better than you, but as a team, you have found a way to maximize your strength that the other teams could not.
There is nothing inherently wrong in Dhoni trying out new batting order tactics. But it is a problem when you take a team like India that has a huge advantage in conventional ways of playing. It has capable batsmen and bowlers in Twenty20 and should try to get into a rhythm where each person feels comfortable and confident in their role.
If there is a method to the madness, I could understand it. But much of this business seems to be ad-hoc. There does not seem to be a master plan and everything gets shuffled based on the match situation or the performance in the previous match. Instead of placing confidence in a particular player to adapt to the conditions, the theme seems to be that you have to change your players according to the conditions. There is some truth to it, but not all the time, because you want to believe that international players will have some level of adaptability.
I am reminded of what Greg Chappell did to the Indian team when he took over. The Indian team won many games when Irfan Pathan and Dhoni were promoted up the order. But their streak ended and the Indians came back to earth. Too much reliance on individuals to rescue the team is a failing strategy even if it can be a successful tactic at times. The other team members feel absolved of their responsibilities and cannot step up when the need comes.
After todays’ defeat against the Kiwis, I am sure that the Indian Brains Trust will come up with some new shuffles in the next game. Like throwing stuff at a wall and seeing what sticks. It is not a long-term strategy for success. What I am more scared of is if the same mentality will creep into the decision-making for Tests and ODIs.
