MS Dhoni - Does he deserve to be criticised?

It’s only natural that in a country where cricket is expected to be a major source of nation’s glory, defeats and victories often invite lambasting and celebrations to unprecedented horizons. And that’s also the reason why cricketers in our country are respected, paid and maintained at such an immense level compared to other cricketing nations.

Indian cricket fans are indeed demanding

None of the cricket enthusiasts, experts and journalists in our country will bear Team India putting up a horrific showing in any cricketing tie they are involved in. When Dhoni’s devils finished off 2013 on a sour note in South Africa and returned home, the criticism was certainly not of the magnitude as it is after the tour of New Zealand, which should also give you a perspective on what was expected of Team India when they boarded the flight to the land of the Kiwis.

Personally, I was envisaging Team India to do the double in New Zealand and build momentum towards other overseas tours during this year, and most importantly for the World Cup, which is slated to take place in New Zealand and Australia in early 2015.

Albeit I expected New Zealand to put up a spirited performance, and make Team India earn their rewards if they were to, I certainly never thought that they could beat us in our own game. Throughout 2013, Dhoni’s men showed the world that they could finish off games with utmost disdain and weren’t feared of picking themselves up from ominous situations. But that trend got reversed in New Zealand, where we couldn’t finish off games from seemingly winning positions. Right from the start of the ODI series at Napier to the culmination of the tour in Wellington, we had numerous chances to stamp our authority and win games, but we never quite managed to.

And to further add to Dhoni’s woes, Team India hit the tour’s lowest point when they had New Zealand tottering at 94-5 in the 2nd innings of the 2nd Test match at Basin Reserve, behind India by a further 152 runs, the Test match has only reached lunch time on day 3, and I don’t know how you cannot squeeze the life out of any team in such a scenario.

That was probably the invitation Dhoni gave the Indian public to criticize him and begin talks of sacking him as the captain of the Indian Test side. But is it fair on the part of the Indian cricketing public to lambaste Dhoni when you feel that the team hasn’t done him any favor at various junctures during the tour of New Zealand?

The story of India’s tour of New Zealand wasn’t a case of Team India getting bulldozed by a New Zealand side, which played as a team right throughout the tour, and thwarted India from claiming any freebies. To keep it simple, New Zealand did to Team India what Team India was expected to do to New Zealand, and emphatically at that.

The story of the ODI series for Team India was that Ashwin and Jadeja failed to pick wickets during the middle overs, and Mohammed Shami was the only one, who looked threatening of all the Indian fast bowlers. As miserable as it could get, Mohammed Shami and Bhuvneshwar Kumar would manage to pick up Jesse Ryder and Martin Guptill relatively cheaply, but it only lead to the arrival of Ross Taylor and Kane Williamson, who proved to be the major nemesis for Team India on this tour.

When it came to India’s batting, Rohit Sharma employed tight defence at one end, and Dhawan at the other end was asked to go after the bowling. This series in many ways was a rusty one for Dhawan, and he was never able to get going at the top of the order. He would play a couple of good shots, but eventually a false shot would kick in to bring about his dismissal, and losing Dhawan cheaply also meant that Team India never quite got off to an enviable start.

Had it not been for the fine performances of Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni for the entire length of the ODI series, Team India most times might have failed to even reach 200,