MSD not averse to leading in all forms

MS Dhoni is not averse to the idea of continuing as the skipper of the the Indian team in all three formats, saying it would be unfair to burden a new player with the mantle of captaincy with just one year left for the World Cup.

“I think, it’s a point of no return with the World Cup literally one year away from now. It won’t give a new guy the ideal time to play, at least, 70-80-90 games beginning to the World Cup... that’s what we would like to have him play before the World Cup”, Dhoni said.“I understand the pressure, it’s not always that you turn up and at the same time, you get the kind of things which give you more experience than the others. So, we have to go through it,” he said at a promotional event here on Monday.

Dhoni, India’s World Cup winning captain, was responding to a question on giving up captaincy in one of the formats to prolong his career.

Dhoni had, last year, said that he might have to give up a format to lead India’s title defence in 2015 but such a decision would be made only at the end of 2013. Dhoni will be 33 by the time the World Cup starts in Australia and New Zealand.

The skipper opined that his fitness, right now, is good. 

“I was really fortunate to see where I am right now with the amount of cricket that we are playing these days. As of now, it’s looking good. The body is closely knit together,” he said. As the talk veered towards India’s recently-concluded tour of South Africa, where the visitors lost both the ODI and Test series, Dhoni said one bad session in Durban cost them the second Test and the series.

“Yes, we had some tough times. We had a bad session. We had one really bad session because of which we were on the losing side,” he said.

However, Dhoni focused on the positives of the Tour. “It’s a process where we have to improve and also the fact that now we will be continuously playing out of India, so it will give more exposure to the players. I know they will take some time but the overall performance was good,” he explained.