West Indies Tri-series 2013 Final: India vs SL - Deciphering last few overs of the chase

MS Dhoni

The moment I saw the pitch assisting bowlers – both spin and pace – in the final of tri-nation ODI series against Sri Lanka at the Queen’s Park Oval, Trinidad, I knew this would have to come to Mahendra Singh Dhoni to take India home.

Shikhar Dhawan‘s magical touch is fizzing out finally, after his magnificent comeback to international cricket. Rohit Sharma eventually gives it away after getting to a laboured half-century, at best. DK is in dreadful form. Suresh Raina‘s effect usually gets nullified outside the subcontinent on testing surfaces. Virat Kohli was the one standing in the way and his early dismissal only reaffirmed my notion that India will make heavy weather of the chase.

Once Ravindra Jadeja got out, I was just curious to know what way Dhoni would opt to go. Yes, I have seen endless knocks of him, taking the chase to the last over and eventually knock the opposition out.

But here in the final, the situation was different in so many ways. He did not have a proper batsman at the other end, had plenty of overs to face and a handful of runs to get on a pretty challenging track (50 runs needed off 12.4 overs). Adding to that, he was not completely fit and all he had for company were three tail-enders.

I was just hoping that he would not start playing aggressive shots. You don’t win matches on such tracks in limited overs cricket by hogging the strike, where shot making is not easy. You need to wait for the kill and Dhoni did exactly that.

Also,there was absolutely no necessity for that option with all of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Vinay Kumar and Ishant Sharma capable of biding time if Dhoni could see Malinga out for the latter two, as with them you are never too far away from a brain fade even with such a composed brain at the other end.

While Indian batsmen can pretty much make Lasith Malinga look like a laughing stock, the bowlers would obviously struggle to face him. Also, the advantages of taking it to last over as against trying to hit your way out are - you can get extra deliveries, runs for those extras, these days free-hits also and lapse in concentration from opposition that could help.

Sri Lankan captain Angelo Mathews helped India’s cause by feeding Malinga to Dhoni at the start of 39th over. Why would you want to do that? Dhoni has not changed gears yet and along with Kohli, plays Malinga the best. Wouldn’t it make more sense to just reserve his quota of four overs and unleash him when tail-enders take strike?

Winning is all about maximising your opportunity. You can’t get away with such mistakes against a batsman of Dhoni’s quality. He faced all the six balls of that over, scored 8 runs and protected Bhuvi earlier in that process too. This being exactly why cricket craves for better captains these days. That was when Sri Lanka lost the plot, much before Dhoni started to stamp his authority in the game.

Dhoni-Bhuvi:

Bhuvi, who has shown a remarkable understanding of the game in his short international career, will do what is expected of him. ‘Just defend’ is the mantra for tailenders when you have Dhoni at the other end. So I did not expect Dhoni to protect Bhuvi against Malinga, and obviously not against lesser bowlers too.

Dhoni rotated the strike around with Bhuvi just ‘dead batting’ all that came at him. India needed 50 off 76 balls, and you know when you can’t win on your own, all you need to do is protect your wicket to give the more accomplished batsman the best chance you could.

After saving Bhuvi against Malinga earlier, Dhoni showed more faith in him in Malinga’s next over, 41st over of the game. Dhoni took the single off the very first ball and turned the strike over to Bhuvi.

You cannot really complain against Dhoni for that there. With hitting boundaries apparently becoming difficult to execute and able tail-enders to help, he needed to look for runs that came his way. Bhuvi comfortably negotiated his first three deliveries from Malinga. But the next one was just too good that it went past his defence.

India then needed 35 off 49 deliveries. Dhoni had single-handedly reduced the target by 15 runs with Bhuvi contributing nothing. All Vinay Kumar had to do now was exactly what Bhuvi did – just defend, play along the ground and let Dhoni finish the game.