Before the Indian tour in 2001, Matthew Hayden spent several hours of the day in the off season practising the sweep shot in the nets. Damien Martyn watched tapes of Tendulkar on his lounge in Perth to ensure he had method of playing spin bowling. Since Tendulkar has given up the pull and hook shot, he has worked hard on the upper cut to ensure he has a plan of scoring runs against short bowling. Each of these players had to combat a plan to scoring runs. Watching Dhoni bat in the first innings it might be a wise move for the Indian captain to conjure up a plan of scoring runs in Australia.
Dhoni has an astute mind and is practical cricketer but he needs to derive a plan desperately. Even in England he struggled to score runs as the shots he is renowned for are difficult to execute on bouncy and seaming pitches. Eventually, he took a bold approach of dancing down the wickets and play shots in the 3rd test match. The theory was easier to apply as he was made to bat with the tail. The question for Dhoni is how does he bat when he has batsman alongside him ? What shots does he look to execute ?
For Dhoni the battle is in the mind rather that in his executions. For instance while coming in to bat against England in the ODI series on seamer friendly wickets, he managed to rescue India on numerous situation with a clear mindset of occupying the crease. It is difficult to understand as to why Dhoni can’t bat with the same mindset in test matches. Is it that he does not believe his own game to succeed or he feels he needs to play authentic cricket shots in tests? Whichever approach he takes he should stick to it as Dhoni has always been a cricket to back his own ability.
The phenomenal cricketer that DHoni is in one day cricket is because he knows eventually the slips will disappear and the field will spread out. At least in the second innings in Melbourne he was on the correct line of thinking, he danced down the wicket and smashed Hilfenhaus for six which made Clarke drop the mid on and mid off a bit further back, that was all Dhoni required as he just tapped the ball towards those areas and ran the singles. It was a positive sign that the Indian Captain had thought about it and was not going to derive the plan.
The ball that got his out could have been punched off the back foot rather than a heave down the ground but the shot probably came from frustration. Australian did bowl really well to him and made him play off the back foot on the off side. Dhoni is not a vicious cutter of the ball he prefers to punch which makes his vulnerable in Australia. Just like he did my smashing Hilfenhaus over his head he should come up with a plan for a short ball. Either cut it or need to use soft hands and use his feet to the seamers.
All of Dhoni;s method are unorthodox but the best man to overcome his run making ability in Australia is Dhoni himself. A cricketer who has attained some much with limitation knows his game well enough to adjust and derive a plan. Once he figures it out in his mind he will be execute perfectly on the field as thats the cricketer he is. Let’s hope for India sake the new year has brought new ideas in his mind.
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