A Fateful Day for Dhoni

There was a key moment in the Nagpur Test today at the end of an absorbing third day's cricket in which the team captains went head to head. MS Dhoni, having played 245 deliveries with hitherto unseen patience, showed for the first time during his gritty innings the pressure under which he was playing.

 

The Indian captain is not one to show much emotion but having taken 16 balls to score 4 runs and creep, uncharacteristically, to 99, he then had to endure watching Ashwin play out two overs, so Dhoni had more time than was perhaps healthy to contemplate that this hundred would be a strident message to send to all those doubters calling for his head. No surprise then that when his opportunity came MS was looking for a simple push and run to cap off a defiant performance. Perhaps in the stress of the moment he didn't take enough time to look up and realise that all the England fielders had just stepped in two paces and that a single to mid-off, that he had taken many times before, was not going to be quite so simple for this all important one run.

 

One run is one too many for Dhoni

Fate, which knows how to turn a footnote into a headline, dictated that MS would push the ball to his opposing team captain -England's man of the moment, Captain Cook. Forgive me for mentioning that Cook, ever-reliable as he is, is not known for his swooping ground fielding and dead eye throwing, but when it's your day all things are possible and for ten memory-blurring seconds, it was as if Collingwood was standing at mid-off when Dhoni set off for his well deserved run in expectation of thrusting his bat, katar dagger like, into the traitorous hearts of his non-believers.

 

But Dhoni failed by the thickness of a ten rupee note (which is now due to be phased out, just like some of the Indian players) to make his ground and deliver the defining innings of his captaincy this series - for it was Cook that monsooned on Dhoni's parade in anticipating the shot and making a squeaky clean pick up, before pausing for a sharp intake of breathe so as to take aim at the only stump he could see, and then deliver his own mobile message to the Indian team, watching anxiously from the balcony, with a direct hit right in the middle of the hapless India team's mobile phone sponsor's logo. Dhoni, knowing that his part in the drama was over, carried on running to leave the field, and his tail-enders, to whatever fate would now decide.

 

The character of a Test team is so often in the image of its captain and so it was that England - patient, self-assured, determined and fit - moved in for the kill against this India team - full of flare and talented individuals but lacking cohesion and single purpose team ethos - and struck again, in the last over of the day, to ensure that the fate of a winning series in India that they crave is once again in their own hands.

 

Did Dhoni do enough to spare his own fate or did he just fall short? It may be that Dhoni's fate is now inextricably linked to that of the President of the BCCI, N Srinivasan, who overruled the other selectors when they unanimousily decided to replace Dhoni for this Test. As fate would have it, Dhoni is captain of the Chennai Super Kings IPL team, which is owned by Srinivasam, so it would appear that Dhoni's place is secure for the time being as India look to redeem themselves in the T20s and ODIs after Christmas. But I wouldn't tempt fate with predictions.



Cook(in) the books

Don't get me wrong - no one is happier than me watching AN Cook (Nathan apparently, but that's a story for his parents), grind the opposition bowlers into the dust. I thought that Cooky's performance in Australia during the 2010/11 Ashes series was as good as it gets in seeing Siddle & co eating the dirt dished out by England's favourite son, but after the annihilation in Ahmedabad my delight knows no bounds when watching Ashwin and Ojha looking dusty, dejected and demoralised as Cook waits like a King Cobra to pounce on any deliver that strays into his strike zone.

Today cricket followers are in stats heaven as on his way to his 23rd hundred Cook also became the youngest player ever to score 7000 runs and the first captain to get a hundred in each of his first five test matches and...ok I know you have read it all by now, but my moan is that (and my regular readers will now be hearing the loud neighing of a hobby-horse of mine) - it is a batsman's game. The yeomen bowlers just don't seem to get the same accolades for their outstanding performances as is bestowed upon the batting gentry. Let's get the statisticians at their own game.

Cook is currently 23rd in the all time list of hundreds in a career - someway behind Tendulkar (51), Kallis (44) and Ponting (remember him?, 41). It is said (and don't question this as I have read lots of boring articles and reviewed lots of stats to save you the effort and tell you it is so) that scoring a hundred is the equivalent to a bowler achieving a five-wicket haul. Leading the list of five wicket hauls is, no surprise, the ICC's famous law changer, Muralitharan with 67 followed by Warne (37) and Sirich Hadlee (36). So putting the magical Murali to one side these stats seem to support the comparison. The English list of bowlers with five-wicket hauls is headed by Sirian (27), followed by SF Barnes (24) and Truman (17), which again bears comparison to the English batting list of century makers.

So what? my son might say (not that he reads these pearls of wisdom - he is too busy thinking up ever more expensive ways of sending me to my grave quickly and penniless). But in true English fashion I want to shout out that it's just not fair. Sure, we say the right things about the bowlers - 'bowlers win matches' - but this is just like throwing our dog a few scraps after the batmen have had their fill of superlatives from a batsman-centric press. Listen to Sky commentators after a poor team batting performance - its all about changing the bowling line up, or the need to 'rest' a bowler. And it's only recently that bowlers have decided to hold up a ball after their 'fifer' and acknowledge the applause of the crowd. It's just not fair. So the next time a batsman's stats are flashed up on your screen to demonstrate his prowess, remember that as far as cricket is concerned there are lies, damn lies and batting statistics.