Even though Indian team is underperforming in the current West Indies series, Sourav Ganguly still backs MS Dhoni for the upcoming World Cup in Australia and furthermore backs ‘˜Captain Cool’ to lead India in 2015.
Even though Indian team is underperforming in the current West Indies series, Sourav Ganguly still backs MS Dhoni for the upcoming World Cup in Australia and furthermore backs ‘Captain Cool’ to lead India in 2015.
While India’s overseas record under Dhoni is poor, the former skipper wants MSD to lead the Men In Blue.
Duncan Fletcher, Ravi Shastri and MS Dhoni have a tough task ahead when they take on a long journey Down Under with a young Indian side which is low on morale and still finding its feet especially in the Test arena.
Even though MSD has not got the feet running in Tests, the 2011 champions do have an upper hand in the World Cup to be held in February-March 2015 as they will be touring Australia for more than two months where they play four Tests against the home side. Followed that will be a tri-series including England.
With that, Team India might just get an upperhand in the mega tourney by getting accustomed to the conditions. The likes of Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan might need some runs under their willow if they are to perform well in what could be a big summer ahead.
The last time India toured Australia, from December 2011 to January 2012, India returned with a 0-4 thrashing that led to a backlash back home. Dhoni’s captaincy suffered a lot as they made an exit from the tri-series as well that included Sri Lanka. But what could be a huge 2015 for Dhoni, Ganguly’s backing for the current captain comes as a turnaround of sorts.
Back in February 2014, it was Ganguly himself who had some ‘harsh’ words for Dhoni. “His (Dhoni’s) Test captaincy has been obnoxious. But changing captains now will unsettle the team. His place is not in doubt in Test cricket, but Dhoni needs to set the overseas record right. If the World Cup was not less than a year away, I would have agreed that Dhoni needed to be removed as captain,” Ganguly was quoted as speaking to a news channel.
But Rahul Dravid, another veteran of Indian cricket, had some ‘critical’ words for Dhoni. “And I think he deserves the right, the chance to play out this year, and assess it at the end of the Australian series. End of that series, we’ll really know where Indian cricket stands and where Dhoni stands, both as a player and as a captain,” Dravid was quoted to the Times of India.
Dhoni’s captaincy is not that it used to be! The skills, tactics and strategies are used over and over again and are so naive. The World Cup, which could be Dhoni’s last as a player, can be the LAST as a skipper as well!
