MS Dhoni's under pressure to Kohli's gone missing: Takeaways for India from series against Bangladesh

India’s tour of Bangladesh came to an end as Mashrafe Mortaza lifted the ODI series trophy in front of the joyous Dhaka crowd on Wednesday. The past few months have been a dream for these fans and the players with the World Cup quarter-final appearance and a dominating series win over Pakistan. This tremendous performance against India is the icing on the cake, arguably. So what did we learn about this Indian team from this series? Will the real Virat Kohli please stand up? Amidst the myriad issues that surfaced during this series – like Dhoni’s captaincy, Ravindra Jadeja and Ajinkya Rahane’s place in the team, India’s fast bowling etc – the Indian vice-captain’s barren run has flown under the radar somewhat. After the century against Pakistan in Adelaide, he is yet to register a score of 50-plus in 10 matches, averaging a shade above 30 for his 247 runs. For a man who has set lofty standards for the last few years, those are staggering numbers. [caption id=“attachment_2313374” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli in this file picture. AP[/caption] But forget the numbers for a moment. The three dismissals in this series tell their own story. The first match saw him play at a ball on the sixth stump outside off, with feet not going anywhere and eyes seeing the cover boundary and not the ball. He was beaten by a harmless straighter one from a part-time off-spinner who mostly just bowls straighter ones, to get trapped leg-before in the 2nd ODI. The last match saw him play the ugliest of slogs to a well-flighted Shakib al Hasan delivery. All three dismissals were the mark of a man short on confidence – and that is something you would never associate with Kohli. Leaving aside all that, a long, tiring season is no excuse to rock on the back-foot and nudge the ball to the point fielder off a FREE HIT. Ashwin is in the form of his life, but is lacking support In his own admission, Ravichandran Ashwin is in the form of his life. The ball is coming out of his hands just right, and every time he tosses the ball up, he looks likely to get a wicket. The outing in Australia – especially the World Cup – has done him a world of good. When India looked for wickets, Ashwin was thrown the ball this series. Bangladesh realised that too as they treated him with utmost respect in the 2nd ODI when they were chasing a modest 200, where his figures read 32 for 1 from 10 overs. And that is where India’s problems lie at the moment. Ashwin lacks support from the other end. In the second match, in particular, Bangladesh were so assured of taking runs off the remaining bowlers that Mushfiqur Rahim at one point played a series of full-blooded forward defensive shots that he would play only when dressed in whites. Great teams, irrespective of the format of the game, have bowlers hunting in pairs. Wasim Akram had Waqar Younis. Shane Warne had Glenn McGrath. Anil Kumble had Harbhajan Singh. For India, however, Ravichandran Ashwin was the only front-line bowler who was even picked for all three matches. None of the other bowlers even played more than two, let alone hunt with him. That Suresh Raina bowled the most number of overs after Ashwin in this series, tells its own story. India missed the services of Mohammad Shami in Bangladesh. Umesh Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja face a long road back Jadeja’s place in the team has been debated for almost as long as he has been playing international cricket. Jigar Mehta had written in detail on Firstpost before the series that if Jadeja does not step up, he will lose favour with Dhoni very soon. It is hard to tell whether being dropped for the third game is a definitive indication of Dhoni’s plans for him. But this had been coming. When he is bowling well, Jadeja fills the support role for Ashwin well, but that has not been happening with any regularity recently. His batting, admittedly not getting enough exposure lower down the order, has not been anything close to spectacular for a long time now. Another potential casualty from this series could be Umesh Yadav. In that extraordinary press conference after the second ODI, Dhoni spoke about the difficulty of having bowlers in the subcontinent who have pace but go for a lot of runs. He also spoke about how Bhuvaneshwar gets away with bowling good line and length even if he doesn’t pick wickets. But then in the third ODI, he dropped Bhuvi to bring back Yadav. In hindsight, and taking Dhoni’s comments about the need for having bowlers who respond to his strategy into account, one cannot help but wonder if the 3rd ODI was an audition for Yadav. One which he failed, if indeed that was the case, bowling bouncers that flew over the batsman’s head and on one occasion over the ‘keeper as well. His 12 overs in the series went for 91 runs and returned two wickets at a run rate of 7.58. With a long domestic season coming up, and Dhawal Kulkarni and Bhuvi capable of giving Dhoni what he wants, Umesh Yadav faces a spell on the sidelines. Judge Rayudu for what Rayudu does, not for keeping Rahane out It won’t be a stretch to say that every Indian cricket follower wants to see Ajinkya Rahane back in the team. While we discussed about the merits of excluding Rahane on the basis of him not having success in the middle-order, lot of rebuttals to that argument came in the form of ‘but how is Rayudu a better batsman than Rahane?’ But that would be missing the point. While based on individual capabilities, Rahane might be the more blessed of the two, Dhoni’s rationale behind dropping him was plain and simple: he’s not clicking at No. 4. Rayudu, in the chances that have been given to him in the middle order, has done reasonably well, averaging a healthy 39.35 from his 26 innings. He is also middle-order batsman by design and not by choice. While his dismissal for a duck in the second ODI increased calls for bringing Rahane back, he responded with a crucial 44 off 49 balls, being involved in India’s best partnership of the match with Dhoni. If Rayudu takes his chances, then he should be allowed to hold on to that No. 5 spot and not be crucified for keeping Rahane out. Will Dhoni revive himself at No. 4? And out of all this moving around and dropping key players, perhaps the most crucial take-away from this series could well turn out to be Dhoni’s future as India’s No. 4 batsman in ODIs. As he acknowledged after the match, “The last two years I have hardly batted at 4. If I have, I have only done so after the 30th-35th over. This was my chance to bat. That’s why we have pushed Raina to 6 so that we have an experienced batsman at 6. This is something I can do only if Nos 6 and 7 keep on batting well. I won’t be shy, I hadn’t been moving well against spin but that had to do with the fact that there wasn’t much batting behind me.” With questions swirling around his captaincy , putting him under quite a bit of pressure, this might just be the fillip his batting required. More on that from Jigar Mehta here . Lastly… A quick note to the BCCI. The time has come where India stop ‘accommodating’ a tour to Bangladesh like the hosts of a lavish party trying to fit in their not-so-famous next door neighbor at the corner dinner table in the eleventh hour. Bangladesh have done enough to earn the same respect Sri Lanka does. Bangladesh have never played a Test match in India, they have never played a bilateral ODI series here either and it is time to change that. The Bangladeshi fans will love it, the players will love it and I’m certain the Indians would be eager to right the wrongs of this series as well. The excuse that they are not that important does not hold water anymore.