MS Dhoni: thrives when the knives are sharpened

Moises Henriques: coming soon to a pedestal near you
© BCCI



You did not need to be a qualified mathematician to calculate that – as of the close of play on day four of the Chennai Test - MS Dhoni had scored 224 runs in the series so far. At an average of 224. After one mesmeric innings, Dhoni has already posted his second highest ever series aggregate, his best having come more than four years ago, on Australia’s 2008-09 visit to India. Since then, Dhoni has played three Tests in seven separate series, and four Tests in two (as well as five two-Test rubbers). His previous highest series aggregate in those encounters was 220, in eight innings in England, as he led his team on their post-World-Cup “Back To Earth With A Splodge 2011 Comedown Special” World Tour. Even since his best period as a Test batsman ended in early 2010, his performances have been adequate rather than disastrous for a wicketkeeper, but, for a man who so regularly grabs ODI matches, series and tournaments by the scruff of their necks and barks at them until they call him “Sir”, he has often had little or sporadic impact on Test series.

Perhaps this is changing. In his two Test innings since he elevated himself from his customary No. 7 spot to bat at 6 (or was forcibly elevated from 7 to 6) (ask him if you see him), he has scored 99 and 224. Is this coincidence, or a man reacting to a fresh challenge and the deservedly increased pressure on his captaincy?

Over the course of his Test career, Dhoni has batted predominantly at 7 in Tests – 89 innings, with two centuries and an average of 31. Batting at both 6 and 8, he has hit two hundreds and averages over 70 (in 13 and 10 innings respectively). This pattern is repeated, to an extent, in ODIs. He has batted most often at 6 – 82 innings, averaging 42, with no hundreds and a strike rate of 81. In his 114 innings batting elsewhere in the order – most often at 5 and 7, but with striking success in his few innings at 3 and 4 – he averages 58, with eight centuries, and a strike rate of 92, and he has found or cleared the boundary rope 25% more regularly than when batting at 6.

Perhaps these are statistical coincidences. Perhaps not. Perhaps India’s captain is a man who thrives when out of his zone of comfort and familiarity, and thrust into novel scenarios, voluntarily or otherwise. Since the knives started being earnestly sharpened and waggled in his captaincy’s general direction after India’s abject subsidence in December’s Kolkata Test, he has scored his first ODI hundred for almost three years, after coming in at 29 for 5 against Pakistan, and, in Tests, played a dogged if ultimately pointless innings in Nagpur, and his match-grasping masterpiece in Chennai.

Australia’s green bowling attack, in which only Peter Siddle has taken more than 100 first-class wickets (but which should be far better suited to English pitches), presented less of a challenge than England’s seasoned pack of proven Test performers, who were themselves toothless in their first Test in November. It would, moreover, be simplistic to say that what we saw in Chennai was a great player seizing the moment when his team most needed it – there have been too many moments since his World Cup final apotheosis have not merely been unseized as barely even tickled. But Dhoni’s innings was a monument of skill and will, another spectacular chapter in one of 21st-century cricket’s most fascinating personal narratives.