India look out of sorts and have no game plans - Simon Doull

MS Dhoni is running out of ideas

There is an old saying that when one is successful, even his glaring mistakes are overlooked. But when someone is down and out, every move made by him is criticized. This is what is precisely happening with MS Dhoni and the management of Team India. It is true that our bowlers could not perform well on the fast tracks of South Africa and New Zealand. Moreover, to make matters worse, our so called established batsmen have also failed to contribute substantially.

Genuinely speaking, Dhoni and the management might have failed with a few selections, but this is a part of the game. Had those selections worked out, MSD would have got all the accolades. As Indian supporters, we all must impose our faith in MSD and Co., which they need badly. Anyways, it is always good to learn from our mistakes in the past and start afresh. This is a philosophy which applies to the game as well as to our life.

So, the issues raised by former New Zealand bowler Simon Doull today are worth giving a consideration. His views simply reflect the feelings of a common Indian Supporter. Doull has categorically pin-pointed the mistakes made by the Indian team.

The former Kiwi fast bowler said,”I am surprised by the reluctance shown by the Indian team to change things around in this series. They bowled first throughout the series and then batted in a must-win game. Before that they selected two new players in the eleven and made a whole lot of changes in their batting line-up. They changed too much at one go and usually it doesn’t work like that.”

“After the first two ODIs, it was clear that the New Zealand batsmen had found out a weakness in their spin bowling, particularly during the middle overs. But they still persisted with Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin.

“Don’t get me wrong, they are both fantastic cricketers, but why not try Amit Mishra once? He is a leg spinner and could have used the bounce better, and more than anything else, it would have been a change when the series was still there to play for. It is just one of many things that have gone wrong for India, but they didn’t react to it quickly enough.”

His comments seem to highlight the exact reasons why India have not won a single match.

He also emphasized: “They are trying too many things. They have played too much ODI and T20 cricket. There is no experience in this bowling line-up and they are getting easily carried away. They have bowled really short throughout the series, instead of cutting off runs on at least one side of the ground. That is how you bowl overseas and build pressure. They haven’t stuck to the basics.”

“Someone like Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who is otherwise a very good swing bowler, I haven’t seen much swing coming from him in this series. But he has definitely bowled short and wide to the batsmen. Why are they not sticking to the basics and getting carried away so easily? Inexperience cannot be an excuse for too long.”

Doull added: “They haven’t come in with a game plan against the New Zealand bowling line-up. They must have known that they would be facing a lot of short stuff from the bowlers here, yet their application has been lacking. And their main batsmen aren’t in form, or willing to apply themselves. Their game plan against this bowling has been lacking and New Zealand isn’t even the quickest bowling attack in the world.”

“Shikhar Dhawan is out of touch and Rohit Sharma has been tied down at the starts. There are not major runs coming from lower down either. You cannot expect Virat Kohli or MS Dhoni to score runs every time. Again, they should have realised it earlier than the fourth ODI and adapted to it more quickly, but that didn’t happen and that is why India have lost the series.”

So let us hope that in the future, instead of experimenting too much, India will have a clear selection policy. Providing too many chances to the non-performers is also not the right approach.