Dhoni bares the aggressive side of his captaincy

Refreshing approach by Indian skipper

Aggressive, innovative and intuitive, that is Mahendra Singh Dhoni as a skipper in limited overs games. But in Tests abroad, often he cuts a forlorn figure – defensive and rigid, allowing the matches to drift away.

We saw that in Melbourne (2012), Johannesburg (2013) and Wellington (2014), where Dhoni went into a shell at the first hint of resistance from the opposition, spreading the field and allowing a free passage for batsmen to score runs. That reluctance to try and dictate the course of the game had seriously dented India’s winning ratio away from home.

But Dhoni has been different in this series against England. The Jharkhand man has showed a rare streak of aggression and it started with the first Test at Trent Bridge. Till now, Dhoni has been content sticking to his favourite formula – four bowlers and seven batsmen. Perhaps, those two setbacks against South Africa and New Zealand taught him the need to have an additional bowler in the eleven, and significance of constant search for wickets.  

He broke the mould at Nottingham, playing five bowlers, in this case sacrificing Rohit Sharma for Stuart Binny. In all likelihood Dhoni will continue the trend, may be, with a slight change of personnel with R Ashwin coming into picture in the following Tests.However, Dhoni didn’t stop by just altering the team combination. Yes, at Trent Bridge he largely went by the rules, of his own that is, and even seemed to switch off when Joe Root and James Anderson were having that record-breaking 10th wicket partnership. But then the pitch for the first Test was a lifeless one with no bounce or movement. Even Mohammad Shami and Bhuvneshwar Kumar had added 111 runs for the last wicket.

Dhoni retained his newfound agro at Lord’s, and the green top offered for the second Test was a perfect aid for him. But more importantly, he didn’t get carried away, and devised strategies according to each day, something Dhoni wasn’t trying earlier while captaining abroad.

In England’s first innings, the pitch had retained a fair bit of smattering of grass, and Dhoni instructed his bowlers to adopt a fuller length and Bhuvneswar reaped rich rewards with a six-wicket haul. While England’s turn came to make a fourth innings chase, the 22-yard strip had changed its nature. There was variable bounce, and bowling fuller length offered the batsmen a cchance to dicate as Root had showed in the initial phase of the post-lunch session on the fifth day, rattling up a few quick boundaries. A diffident Dhoni would have spread the field and waited for the batsmen to make mistake, in the course squandering the initiative.

But Dhoni went for a different route at Lord’s. He asked Ishant to bowl a shorter length, and after some serious cajoling the Delhi pacer relented. But why he particularly chose Ishant? His answer revealed the depth of his understanding of the bowlers at his disposal.

“Ishant is someone who can do that. I can’t ask Bhuvi to bowl that length. Even Shami can bowl quick, but he doesn’t get a lot of bounce off wicket,” said Dhoni.Dhoni supported the bowler with fielders at deep fine leg, square leg and deep midwicket to boot with one at short-leg. The strategy paid off brilliantly as England batsmen plummeted into muddle-headedness while trying to reply to India’s tactic with counter-attack.

It was a deviation from the familiar field setting for short-pitched bowling – short leg, silly point and then an umbrella of fielders at slip cordon, gully and point. Dhoni explained the setting. “The game has really changed as it is more about what suits that point of time. I don’t think in the old days, there are quite a few journalists from olden times here, and they might not have seen fielders at deep square leg, deep fine leg, deep midwicket, short leg and midwicket and then bowl bouncers. Earlier, one short leg was enough to bowl bouncers.”

That was a refreshing insight into Dhoni’s ticking cricketing mind, and it was also an indication that he might go for a different strategy in the coming Tests, depending on the conditions and pitch, and will not blindly follow the short-pitched ball method because of its success at Lord’s.

But these two Tests have showed a previously unknown side, a welcome one at that, of Dhoni, and he needs to retain it. This young Indian side has oodles of talent, and with an aggressive captain at the helm they can do wonders.