No surprise that Dhoni has retired from Tests

Funnily enough I found myself wondering why MS Dhoni was still playing Tests earlier in the Australia/India series - he's now made the decision to retire from Tests with immediate effect.   He had to miss the 1st Test but it didn't feel there was any great clamour to get him into the side - there was a clear contrast to Michael Clarke who was pictured working with the physio a lot desperately trying to get himself fit.   Clearly an element of that is the way the Western media portrays the two captains, but I couldn't help thinking that in Tests Dhoni is an also-ran where as in ODIs and Twenty20s he's a match winner.   

In ODIs and Twenty20s Dhoni's captaincy also seems to suit the game - the batsmen can't defend for long periods.   In Tests Dhoni's "wait for the batsman to make a mistake" style of captaincy doesn't work, particularly against the tail.   There was an interesting tweet from Andy Zaltzman last night - at that point Australia's first 6 wickets had averaged 44 per wicket against India's 52.4, while wickets 7-10 had averaged 62.4 for Australia versus 14.1 from India's lower order.   I'd love to see the analysis of that over a number of captain's careers - I suspect Dhoni would come off very unfavourably, and I don't think Alastair Cook would fare too well either.

Another potential benefit for the game as a whole, not to mention the Indian team, is that Dhoni has never got behind the use of the umpire review system.   Given that some wrong decisions have gone against India in this series, I wonder if Dhoni was under pressure internally to change his stance and accept it.   One of his strengths is that he has a clear view of things and stays true to that vision - that may be to his detriment on DRS given that his original stance (that it wasn't 100% accurate) didn't reflect the overwhelming cricket majority who just want to see more correct decisions, however they're made.

Kohli's ready so Dhoni can concentrate on the form of the game he appears to enjoy more.   Journalists can look forward to more exciting press conferences, and Dhoni can concentrate on ODIs and Twenty20.   He'll be around one month away from his 38th birthday when the 2019 World Cup is played in England so that could be a realistic aim now he's not playing Tests, but equally Dhoni may feel that he's done enough - he certainly doesn't need to play any format of cricket for the money.

Disecting India's performance

Where do I begin?

1) Poor preparation - the wrong balance between rest and play for the West Indies series

2) Lack of warm-up fixtures for the rested players

3) Inconsistent selection - where was Murali Vijay, a like-for-like (almost) replacement for Sehwag, who would have taken the attack to England and possibly force them to change their initial bowling plans.

Where was Virat Kohli? He had a good tour of the West Indies but was jettisoned for Yuvraj Singh, a nothing bowler, a flat track bully of a batsman and a shadow of his old fielding self (before injuries).

4) Poor bowling - if the pitch is not doing anything and if the ball is not doing anything then you dry up the runs by bowling a consistent line outside off-stump and force the batsmen to make the mistake. This is something that England and South Africa have done, and something that India should have yesterday.

5) Abject field placings - that said consistent bowling needs the captain to set the right field. Dhoni not having a third-man for a large part of the innings gave England far too many cheap runs. Not having an orthodox fine leg didn't help either as the bowlers sprayed it. Also even for part-time spinners, you need to have an attacking field to create mistakes, yesterday it was like being at a dairy with all the milking that was going on.

That's just a few areas for development. The last two can be remedied for Edgbaston, but I'm not holding my breath that they will.

Fantastic decision by Taufel

Taufel just gave Sehwag out LBW to a short left-arm over ball from Riaz. Quality decision - as Mike Atherton said on commentary the instinct is to assume that from left-arm over, short balls must pitch outside leg. This time Taufel knew different. It would be interesting to know if the umpires review the bowling actions of the two teams coming into the match to check how they tend to shape the ball and how wide of the crease they tend to go. Riaz on this occassion was very tight to the wicket.

On another note, there's been some criticism of Dhoni for batting first but whatever the result I think he's done the right thing. It's by all accounts a good batting track that will get slower as the match goes on which suggests batting first is a good idea, but equally it takes the pressure of the Indian batsmen. As it is the pressure will be on India's bowlers, but most importantly, Dhoni himself as captain of the side bowling second, and I think he's happy to take that role on.

Kallis and South Africa close in on win

It's brilliant to see Jaques Kallis finally getting to 200 - he's an absolutely class act and unlike many - I'd have him in my all-time international cricket XI. Together with centuries from Amla and de Villiers, South Africa look certainties to take a 1-0 lead against the number 1 side in the world.

India look alarmingly poor in the field. It was their batting collapse in the 1st innings that set up the game but their batsmen will bounce back, although they need to get used to playing on bouncy wickets again. Sreesanth, however, is not a good enough bowler to lead an international attack, and Dhoni seems to have forgotten how he became a successful captain. When de Villiers came in on day 2 he was greeted by not a single catcher. That's right - no slips or gully. Dhoni got the job by demonstrating how he could take calculated attacking risks to get wickets and I hope he doesn't forget that. He simply has to attack more if India are to compete, let alone win the series.

Hotting up

No, I'm not just talking about the weather in England with another two excellent cricket-playing days of weather in mid-October. The Australia v India contest should be hotting up over the next few hours if Katich can find the odd shot or two (his strike rate is below 15!) - with nearly two sessions and a day to go Australia are well over 100 ahead and can push on to leave India a tantalising target which allows Australia to take 10 wickets and win. Ponting's captaincy skills, which Ian Chappell has been praising compared to India captain Anil Kumble's, will come to the fore again.

With a Warne in their side, Australia would have been virtually dead certs, but without the game is in the balance. A draw just favourite perhaps....

Dhoni's sensible batting brings improved stats

It was only a week or two back that I posted about MS Dhoni using his brain in India's ODI victory over Australia. And since then he went for the highest value at the IPL auction - $1.5m.

Now Cricinfo have laid out the stats that seem to support the fact that Dhoni is taking more responsibility in the last year - even more so now that he's captain. His average has gone from 43 pre-2007, to 48 since January 2007, and 51.75 as captain.

Probably the most interesting table within this article is the very last one. Dhoni is second only to Mark Boucher for lowest dot balls faced percentage....Pietersen is the highest Englishman in the list at 10th.

Dhoni uses brain in Indian victory

When India toured England last summer, I accused MS Dhoni of having no brain. Having hit Pietersen for two sixes, when on 92 and with his team on over 500 batting first in the 3rd Test, needing only a draw for a series victory, Dhoni perished on the boundary going for hatrick of sixes. Given the dominant position Dhoni and India were in, the post inspired a few comments of disagreement! As it turned out, the game was a boring draw and India won the series.

In between that series and now, Dhoni captained India to victory in the Twenty20 with some really attacking captaincy in a game which is generally considered to be about containing the batsmen. Dhoni kept attacking fielders in place, particularly slips, when other captains didn't, and reaped the rewards as wickets once again proved to be the best way of reducing the batting sides' run rate.

Today, Dhoni captained India to victory over Australia in the latest Commonwealth Bank ODI. Chasing only 159 India were going well at 89-2 in the 22nd over, with Tendulkar well set, but 3 wickets fell relatively quickly and India found themselves at 102-5 in the 29th over when Dhoni came to the wicket. In the end Dhoni and Sharma, who was the more dominant batsman in their partnership, took India to a 5 wicket victory with 25 balls to spare.

What impressed me was the fact that Dhoni was content to play defensively, knowing that if he and Sharma could see their way past the main 4 bowlers, Ponting would have to use Clarke and Symonds to finish off the overs, so while he only scored 17, the fact that he used up 54 balls to get that 17 was the key. If he'd scored 17 in 2 overs and then exposed his tail to Lee et al, India may well have lost, but Dhoni used his head and - along with Sharma - saw his team to victory.

So I take back my comment that Dhoni doesn't have a brain! It will be interesting to see how he does when he takes over the Test captaincy, assuming he does, after Kumble.

The Indian Test captain

It seems crazy to me that India have gone for Anil Kumble as Test captain, and it is even crazier that it is public knowledge that Tendulkar was asked first and turned it down! Kumble himself is an awesome professional and I'm sure he'll do a decent job, but the way the BCCI came to their decision was wrong and the end decision is wrong (irrespective of whether Kumble plays for 2 years and wins every game!).

First announcements on who was going to be captain had to be put back, then it became public that Tendulkar didn't want it, then the announcement was put back again, and then the announcement came (several hours late) and it was Kumble. The reason I think this is wrong is that India have a problem with a number of players likely to retire at similar times and Kumble is one of them. It was important that the captain wasn't in that group, to ensure a decent transition, even if an experienced vice-captain was required.

While I've seen all but nothing of Dhoni's captaincy, his attacking instincts in the Twenty20 appealed to me, and I hope his confidence doesn't get knocked by the way this has been handled - the selectors seem to be saying they'd rather have anyone but him to captain the Tests!

Read more here.

Surprise resignation by Dravid

This really is a shock (to me at least, but I think everyone). India have just beaten England away and now have the Aussies coming - the biggest challenge of them all. What could have happened to make Dravid want to step down? The media pressure for the Indian cricket captain is probably more intense than any other role in world sport, but he would have known that when he took the job on. Perhaps it was his relative failings with the bat, but he's still an absolutely certain pick in the Indian team so it wasn't like his place was under pressure.

There must be some (not unusual) internal machinations going on within the Indian camp - Ganguly to reclaim the captaincy anyone?

England about to make the same mistake as India

It seems, according to all press reports, that England are about to appoint Andrew Strauss as captain when Michael Vaughan doesn't recover in time from his broken finger to lead the team in the 1st Test against the West Indies at Lords. As discussed a few days ago on Cricket Burble (England Captaincy Candidates), Strauss needs to concentrate on getting runs under his belt to cement his place in the side after a very unlucky series in Australia that saw hm wrongly given out 3 times in a row in the 2nd and 3rd tests. And perhaps he's just too much of a nice guy to lead England?

Geoffrey Boycott's recent comments on Indian skipper Rahul Dravid are interesting, "Rahul Dravid is a superb batsman, a lovely lad who nobody dislikes but he needs to stand up and take charge. he is not a born leader. A strong leader is a must. india's best period in recent years has been with a strong captain Ganguly, and a nice man behind the scenes in John Wright. They complemented each other."

It would be interesting to hear what Geoffrey thinks about Strauss if he leads England out at Lords.