Can Dhoni be India’s best captain with his awful overseas record?

A captain is only as good as his team but a great captain can make his team better. Mike Brearley famously did it for England in 1981. England trailed Australia 0-1 after two Tests. Ian Botham, the team’s best player, had resigned as captain before he could be sacked after a pair in the drawn second Test at Lord’s. England were not just in disarray, they were in nuclear meltdown. In stepped Brearley; up stepped a rejuvenated Botham. England won the next three Tests and the series will forever be known as Botham’s Ashes. Still, in the famous Headingly Test, even after Beefy’s blistering 149, Australia needed just 130 in the fourth innings to take an unassailable 2-0 in the series. The had proceeded serenely to 56 for 1 when Brearly instructed Bob Willis to simply bowl as fast as he could and damn the no-balls. [caption id=“attachment_1395073” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  MS Dhoni seems to lack a killer instinct away from home. Getty Images[/caption] A less astute captain might have worried about extras in a small chase but Brearley knew his man. “With me, he [Brearley] knew I needed to get into a cocoon of concentration and not be distracted,” Willis told the Independent in 2011. With the backing of his captain, a furious Willis ripped apart the Australians to finish with 8 for 43 and deliver arguably the most famous Ashes win of the last century. Fast forward to February 2014. On the third day of the second Test, India led New Zealand by 152 runs and needed just five wickets to claim their first away Test win since June 2011. Instead, New Zealand added 476 runs for the loss of just one wicket over a day-and-a-half. Here’s how ESPNcricinfo described Dhoni’s captaincy: “Having spent most of the last afternoon waiting for a mistake, Dhoni attacked for about half an hour on the fourth morning before resorting to his fancy fields. At one point, he asked Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Shami to bowl from round the stumps with a seven-two off-side field. It is not hard to imagine that they struggled to bowl wide outside off. The only chance created with India still in the game was by Zaheer Khan, deep into the first session, but India had just one in-between slip that couldn’t get to the catch that a second slip would have taken.” Rather than attack a weak opponent, he chose to retreat when they showed some fight. Rather than play to the strengths of his bowling attack, Dhoni forced them to adapt to his methods. Rather than simplify things for his bowlers, he chose to complicate them. Again from ESPNcricinfo: “The seeds for this were sown on the third day, when India’s fields suggested they were waiting for the new ball, 40 overs away.” It is impossible to imagine Michael Clarke doing that. Or Steve Waugh. Or Mahela Jayawardene. Or Sourav Ganguly. The best captains don’t wait for something to happen. They do what they can to make things happen. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But they are proactive rather than reactive. Yet even when Dhoni does something, it is often baffling and seemingly pointless. For example, he brought himself on for an over while handing the gloves to Virat Kohli. He then took back the gloves and gave the ball to Kohli. Perhaps he thought he would snatch a wicket through the element of surprise. If so, that would be surprising given Dhoni had yet to take a wicket from the 15 overs he had bowled before this. If it was to give his front-line bowlers a breather, Kohli could have done the job without the need for a part-time keeper to don the gloves for a part-time bowler In the first Test, Dhoni took off Mohammed Shami and brought on Rohit Sharma for an over with New Zealand 80 for 9 on what seemed to be a whim. It was a move that baffled everyone in the commentary box and contributed to the last-wicket pair adding 25 runs in a match India lost by 40 runs. Dhoni is often hailed as India’s best captain. He has won the most Tests. He has won the 2011 World Cup and the 2007 ICC T20 World Cup. He led India to the Champions Trophy in 2013 and the No 1 ranking in both Tests and ODIs. Yet the last three three years have cast a lengthening shadow on his reputation. Since beating the West Indies in 2011, India have lost 10 of their last 12 away Tests. Dhoni’s away record now stands at 5 wins, 11 losses and 7 draws. Those 11 losses are the most by an Indian captain outside the country. In contrast, Sourav Ganguly won 11 Tests without the comfort of home cooking. He won more than he lost too, with India succumbing 10 times under his leadership. Out of the 28 Tests Ganguly captained outside India, he won or drew 18 of them, giving him a win/draw to loss ratio of 2.25 Even Mohammed Azharuddin, who won just one Test outside India and lost 10, managed to draw 16 Tests, so his win/draw to loss ratio is 1.7 Dhoni’s ratio is currently 1.1 after India squeezed out a draw in the second Test thanks to a fourth-innings hundred from Virat Kohli, which was necessary only because India had conceded the high ground on day four. Dhoni’s ratio at home is 9, which is absurdly good (Dhoni has won 21 of 30 Tests in India while losing just 3) Overall, his ratio is 2.72. The super-sized gap between his home and away ratios tells the story. Those who point at the inability of India’s bowling attack to take 20 wickets away from home, have a point. But it is undeniable Dhoni’s captaincy has contributed to that malaise. He makes odd choices, is overly defensive and does not seem to trust his bowlers completely. He also appears unwilling to change his tactics when they fail, choosing to pin the blame on poor execution rather than poor strategy. To be fair, India have never been world beaters outside the subcontinent. They have never won a series in Australia or South Africa. Yet to transform from a dominating team in friendly conditions to a punching bag beyond India’s borders demands a deeper explanation. The same attack that took 1 for 476 also bowled New Zealand out for 105 and 192 in their two previous innings. Bowlers do not simply turn into pumpkins at the stroke of midnight. Dhoni’s inability to get the most out his troops is a failure of his captaincy. He can lead from the front when the odds are in his favour, as his home record shows. But even when he has the advantage as the visiting team, he tends to shrink at critical moments, unable, or unwilling, to push his team towards victory if it requires even the slightest risk. The best captains do not worry about risk. For them, the reward is in chase for victory, not in avoiding defeat. That is why Dhoni cannot be India’s best captain. Unless he can solve this puzzle; unless he learns to inspire India to fight and scrap and push, that honour must elude him.