Is this the end of the glory days of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the captain who could do no wrong? Considering how India have fared in two Tests in which, in phases, they had as much of a chance as England to win, it is only right to conclude things have caught up with Dhoni. He won't be seen anymore as the captain with the Midas touch.
Even in the extended theatre of Test cricket, opportunities do not come knocking more than once. And India spurned those two chances at Lord's and Trent Bridge and will probably slide freely back to old days and old ways. It was when the opportunities came knocking that the uber-cool, super instinctive Dhoni joined the ordinary mortals who had led India before him.
The first instance came at Lord's when England were 92 for five and in danger of being bowled out. But Dhoni, who has been known to push on with his main bowlers like a strict task master more than many of his gentler predecessors, was inclined to agree with a young Ishant Sharma that he needed a rest, that too after a 40-minute luncheon break.
The second came when England, under grave threat of being bowled out under a Nottingham overcast sky, began counterattacking through Stuart Broad. It was here that Dhoni stood exposed. He was as clueless about how to get past Broad as many Indian captains before him who merely stood with their hands on their hips when the bowlers failed to deliver.
A once smart Dhoni, guided more by instinct than the ordinary rules of battle engagement, had very little to offer. I know watching television is not the best way to come to easy conclusions. But it did seem as if the skipper gave no clear guidance to give to his bowlers when they were being taken apart by boundary hits. There were no strategy time outs as it were to help his bowlers regroup and focus again on the task at hand.
Dhoni was never the one to overtly help bowlers by holding deep conversations with them. He was more the type to give them a free run once he chose a bowler to keep on in the attack. He was always seen as the ultra cool skipper who backed his bowlers to deliver. Somehow, those tactics, admirable as they always seemed, did not work at crucial junctures in the winner-take-all kind of Test series.
It is still remarkable that Dhoni came out with his reputation for fair play and sportsmanship unsullied even after he had been instrumental in making the appeal to the umpire at square leg for the Ian Bell run out. In the cool reflection of the tea interval in the dressing room, the Indian skipper may have seen the light. He has never been the one to take on Attilla the Hun's demeanour on the battlefield.
Dressing room diplomacy won even if the rules were bent to allow Bell to resume. The laws clearly state that a batsman must be recalled before he leaves the field of play. But delicate diplomacy cannot pander to the pedantic. It matters little that the rulebook was thrown away while the spirit of the game was being tended to.
Regardless of what has happened in the series so far and what may happen when Team India is stripped of their Test title, we have so much to thank Dhoni for that it is almost unfair to slate him when his team is under huge pressure for the first time in a series. Not only has Dhoni brought India thus far in the Test match arena but he also won the big World Cup for his country.
If he does experience his first Test series defeat, we might see Dhoni reinvent himself as the fearless skipper who brought in so many new ideas into the game in its most modern setting of outright attacking play in all formats. It is possible he may have allowed the pressures of the media buildup to this series in the UK to get to him. At the end of it, he may awaken to the realisation there is no substitute to a positive outlook to cricket.
A man who reigned once will know what helped him build his empire. Hopefully, Dhoni will go back to those values, trust his instincts, take bold decisions and move on. A first step may well be to abandon the unique trust he has placed in Harbhajan Singh whose latest returns do not justify his exalted status in the team anymore. Dhoni can do little about his main strike bowler being hors de combat but he can certainly change the composition of the spin component before it is too late.
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