Dhoni retired from test cricket just before the world cup this year. After that recently a former selector revealed some off the field secrets of selection and the team. According to him Dhoni would have lost test captaincy after India was whitewashed in England and Australia but Srinivasan saved him. Apart from captaincy that former selector also talked about groupism and low morale of the team under Dhoni’s captaincy.
At the moment ODI team is full of Chennai Super Kings players. It is more of a biasness than anything else. Dhoni has no respect for seniors. By seniors I mean the players who grew under Ganguly’s captaincy like Harbhajan, Zaheer, Yuvraj, Sehwag etc. All the experts are saying that we haven’t found the replacement of Zaheer Khan yet then also he is not in the team. His fitness was an issue but now he is fit to play but no why would Dhoni consider him ahead of Mohit Sharma or Ishwar Pandey? Ok, Zaheer has come out of an injury recently so let’s move on to other players. We all know that we needed the services of Yuvraj Singh the all rounder during the world cup but he was not even picked in the squad. By god’s grace our top order clicked at the right time and took us to the semis otherwise it would have been a huge disaster.
Our middle order is still weak. We haven’t got a permanent no. 4 yet. No one has been able to get in to the shoes of Yuvraj Singh at no. 4. After experimenting a lot Dhoni promoted himself at no. 4 against Bangladesh but even that didn’t work. As a result we lost a series against Bangladesh. Bangladesh was so dominating that it felt like we were playing against Australia down under. There is no harm in giving the importance to youngsters but you need experience as well to nurture them. India need that experience back in the side.
Dhoni’s retirement from test cricket was sudden before the world cup. On one hand Srinivasan was sacked from BCCI and on the other hand Dhoni started loosing again in Australia. He anyway was going to loose test captaincy. You have to pay the price in some or the other way when you do wrong to so many people. After Dhoni, Kholi became the captain of test side. And as soon as Kohli took the reigns of test side straight away Harbhajan comes back into the side. Selectors clearly mentioned it that we wanted an off spinner and Kohli took the name of Harbhajan Singh. It shows how much respect Kohli has for seniors. He as a youngster know that he has learnt a lot from them and their presence will help all the youngsters in the side.
Harbhajan made a strong comeback in that only test match against Bangladesh. Hence he was awarded a place in ODI side as well. In ODIs as well he did a good job in Zimbabwe. After Harbhajan, now Amit Mishra has made a comeback in the test side for Sri Lanka’s tour. These seniors won’t take much time to come back into the form it is just a matter of one good game. Kohli understands that. Now, I hope Yuvraj, Zaheer, Gambhir and others will also do well in domestic circuit and will make comeback in the Indian side as Kohli has opened the doors of Indian team for them. There can’t be bigger humiliation for us than a defeat against Bangladesh. Hope Dhoni understands that sooner and bring the seniors back in the ODI team to prolong his career or as the news is 2016 t20 world cup will be his last stint for Indian team.
