Skip to main content

The Fab Five .....and the rise of Dhoni

All the ruckus around how the Fab Four (Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly and Laxman) plus Kumble are finished and showed be shown the door en masse is so typical of the Indian cricket fans and media. This is not a case in their defence but I think the issue needs to be looked at logically and the right cricketing decision made.

Of the five, Tendulkar is the only one who remains in the ODI team and I think its time he realised that since he's not going to play in the 2011 World Cup, this is as good a time as any to retire from ODIs. Playing ODIs can only lead to more injuries for him and more importantly he really doesn't have anything left to achieve in that format of the game.

The Test team is an entirely different kettle of fish though, for a couple of reasons. One, the next series is against the Aussies, which is no time to make wholesale changes to the team. Secondly, even after the series against Australia, I think at least Tendulkar and Laxman need to be in the Test team for a year or two. None of the youngsters in line to replace these guys has sufficient long-duration game experience and if the middle-order was completely replaced all at once it would be like taking off all four wheels of a car. Plus, Tendulkar and Laxman are still young enough and performing well enough to be there rightfully. Dravid and Ganguly on the other hand look jaded and tired and I would hate to see them struggling on and making dents into the legacies they'll leave behind. The best thing for them to do would be to announce their retirements after the Australia series so they can be given a send-off like Gavaskar and not Kapil Dev.

Which leaves us with Kumble. The captaincy gave a new lease of life to Kumble but now with Dhoni appearing totally ready (at least from a captaincy and keeping standpoint) to take the Test leadership over, India's best bowler ever should retire. Again, ideally right after the Australia Test series this autumn. His bowling totally lacks bite these days and moreover, unlike middle-order batsmen, the only way to get spinners ready for Test cricket is by making them play it. The series against England, Pakistan and New Zealand are ideal opportunities to see if Piyush Chawla and Pragyan Ojha have got it in them to be India's next matchwinning spinners.

This transition will also be an important time for Mahendra Singh Dhoni. He is unquestionably India's most valuable ODI and T20 player because of his batting and his leadership. In Test match cricket though, he has struggled and the only reason he's still the first choice wicket-keeper is because the next two guys in line (Dinesh Karthik and Parthiv Patel) haven't been able to do enough. The captaincy of the Test team will hopefully be the trigger for Dhoni to replicate the impact he has had on the limited-overs team. Its interesting how his rise in the Indian ranks has mirrored the decline of the Fab Five. Unlike them, he's not a naturally gifted cricketer nor is he from a big city with an established cricketing culture. He's yet to make a significant impact in Test cricket and in any other country, he would be just another cricketer rather than the superstar he is in India. But such is the fervour with which limited-overs cricket is followed in India. Hopefully Dhoni has the desire to do as well in Test cricket and leave a legacy behind that at least compares with Laxman and Ganguly's, if not Tendulkar, Dravid and Kumble (who along with Gavaskar and Kapil Dev would rank as India's five best cricketers of all-time). The next five years will tell.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Et tu?

As a single sport website, I think Cricinfo has brought about a revolution and the fact that they were bought by ESPN is testament to how highly valued they've become. Their editing and approach to articles/opinion has been refreshing to say the least and even though they seem to have had a lot of editorial staff movement they've usually maintained very high standards. Off late though, both in their headline styles as well as in actual content, there seems to be an occasional slippage of standards and an inching towards the modern media sensationalism which is a bit of a pity. This piece  by Siddharth Monga is a classic example. Granted that the last two press conferences by Dhoni and Sehwag  indicated clearly that the captain and his deputy did not agree on this aspect of selection but "discord", "dissent", "public sniping" feels rather presumptuous and heavy handed. Yes, it is a team sport but there is no reason why everyone on the team needs ...
1 comment
Read more

First thoughts on the Ashes

The only minor surprise for me in the 2013 Australian Ashes squad announced last week was the selection of James Faulkner ahead of Moises Henriques as the second all-rounder. Minor because given  the Shane Watson shenanigans of recent times, I would have thought that Inverarity and co would have opted for a second batting all-rounder (which is what Henriques clearly is). Instead they've gone with a bowling all-rounder in Faulkner and it'll be interesting to see what happens if Watson's batting woes in Test match cricket continue in the first two Tests. As for the rest of the squad, given the way the inexperienced batting performed in India, Rogers and Haddin were always going to make it in to the team and the choice of Khawaja over Smith appears sound too given that the latter's strength is in playing spin bowling. The batting still looks as unsettled and shaky as the Indian fast bowling line-up and its here that the series will be won or lost for the Aussies. The retu...
Post a Comment
Read more

Much ado about a run-out

Judging by the amount that's been said and written about Ian Bell's run-out-that-wasn't at Trent Bridge, you would think that it has been the most significant occurrence of the series so far when nothing could be further from the truth. Andrew Miller  and Samir Chopra seem to be of the opinion that it was the crucial turning point in the match, which I completely disagree with (the post-tea sessions on days one and two were far more critical and momentum shifting). Andy Flower says that if Tendulkar had been run-out similarly in Bombay, it would have caused an international incident. He's clearly feeling the effects of having been in the England cricket set-up for too long given that a) its very improbable that Tendulkar would do something as daft as Bell did, and b) when a controversial run-out (but within the laws) did happen to him (against Pakistan at Eden Gardens no less), Tendulkar went out to the crowd and appealed to them to calm down and let the game proceed...
Post a Comment
Read more