Dhoni: Captain Cool? Captain Clueless?

Teams win matches, not captains. Great teams are about great team players, great team performances, not about leaders with magic wands. Knives are out for Mahendra Singh Dhoni after India was thrashed to pulp by England for the second time in the series. He has been lucky far too long, it’s time for a reality check, crowed his detractors. He’s just a man manager, not a leader, said some others. Many former greats found fault with his body language, his cricketing common sense, many were quick to denounce his batting abilities. The not-so-subtle hint: the Indian captain is just not good enough to achieve whatever he has achieved so far. The World Cup victory, India’s Number 1 status in Test cricket, his stupendous success in all forms of the game were a massive stroke of luck. [caption id=“attachment_53854” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“More than in captaincy, Dhoni has to deliver in batting. A performing captain always makes a positive leader. Paul Ellis/AFP”] [/caption] Captain Cool is suddenly Captain Clueless. It does not take us long to trash our heroes. We forget too soon. Has Dhoni suddenly lost his grey cells? Improbable. Has he forgotten how the game is played? Improbable again. In the age where every move of the captain is magnified, scrutinised and criticised, he has survived long enough and survived successfully. It is possible the team is too jaded right now — it looks so. It is possible tiredness is setting in on a team that has been playing without a stop for sometime. The captain is as good as the team, it’s not always the other way round. A great captain is as much a product of careful myth-making as he is of wonderful team members. Steve Waugh would not have been a captain he was without the support of players like Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath. Clive Lloyd wouldn’t have been the same captain without Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes and his fearsome fast bowling quartet. Sourav Ganguly won’t be as respected without some of the greats around. Leadership matters. But on his own, a great leader can go only this far. With senior players like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Harbhajan Singh around, Dhoni need not be the mentor-guide to the team, he just needs to keep it in good fettle. He never had to display aggression to prove his leadership abilities. The team performed well enough without that. Nobody ever blamed him for missing the fighting spirit. The spirit is missing at the moment. Captaincy is not about great tactical moves too. Anybody in the know, particularly the former ‘greats’, understand sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. A great tactical leader is perhaps one who averages better in successful gambles. It worked well for Dhoni so far, now it does not. But a good team is not about successful gambles. It’s about solidity — in all aspects of the game, batting, bowling and fielding. And, it’s about the team effort. Team India has fallen short on these counts in England. It has to get its act together, fast. And Dhoni, more than in captaincy has to deliver in batting. A performing captain always makes a positive leader. Why this sudden dip in the form of the team? With so many injured players it could be a hospital in motion. There are so many reasons, starting with the Indian Premier League. But that’s for another day. Of course, Dhoni, as the leader, has to take the flak. He takes the applause when the team wins, doesn’t he? But it’s too early to write him off. He has proved his detractors wrong earlier.