IPL 2016: Captaincy of MS Dhoni and Suresh Raina a reflection of their teams, says Virender Sehwag
Former Indian opener Virender Sehwag feels that the difference in captaincy between Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Suresh Raina is just a reflection of the quality of players in both the teams.
Dhoni and Raina's captaincy have drawn a lot of comparisons after the former Chennai Super Kings players were split after eight years and were made skippers of the new Rising Pune Supergiants and Gujarat Lions respectively in the ninth edition of the IPL. While GL are performing sensationally, RPSG are struggling at the bottom of the table.
Writing for sports360.com, Sehwag said, "Raina has quite a few players under him who are firing on all cylinders. When your top order scores runs, your lower order batsmen chip in with useful innings and your bowlers are generally on target, then the captain also looks good.
“And similarly, any team that is at the bottom of the table is there because of the lack of performances from all players."
Sehwag also mentioned Dhoni's immaculate run while leading CSK till 2015. "We saw that at Chennai Super Kings, Dhoni was on top of the world. His team would invariably make it to the playoffs, and the team won the league twice.
“But now the situation has changed. The team that Dhoni led for so long was disbanded and the players he has at the moment are good, not great."
RPSG have already lost four of their valuable foreign players- Faf du Plessis, Kevin Pietersen, Steven Smith and Mitchell Marsh due to injury. Australian batsmen Usman Khawaja and George Bailey have been roped in as replacements for these injured players.
"Now Dhoni doesn’t have the services of Kevin Pietersen and Faf du Plessis. The injury to Mitchell Marsh has added to his woes. However, Dhoni can look at the situation in a positive way. With such big names out of the picture, those on the fringe will get a chance and you never know, you might get a match-winner.
“Until now, Dhoni has handled his team well, including Ravi Ashwin," he said.
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The veteran batsman also said that the one area where Raina is ahead of Dhoni at the moment in the tournament is batting – Raina has made 228 runs so far, whereas Dhoni has only 146 from eight games. He added that with Faf and Pietersen out of the side, the wicket-keeper batsman might score better by promoting himself up the order.
Sehwag also justified why Dhoni has been under-utilising Ravichandran Ashwin, saying, "There is some chatter about Dhoni not utilising Ashwin properly and relying on the inexperienced Murugan Ashwin. I feel Dhoni was correct in bowling Murugan up front because early on the pressure is less.
"Ravi can always be relied upon to bowl in the latter stages of the innings. So Dhoni decided to give Murugan extra cushion by bowling him at the top. However, it’s not a hard and fast rule and we have seen the senior Ashwin taking the ball ahead of Murugan of late."
RPSG are currently in the sixth place with just two wins from eight games, whereas GL are leading the table with six wins. GL won both the games they played against RPSG in the tournament so far.