Away test failures puncture Dhoni’s leadership aura

NEW DELHI, (Reuters) – Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s  one-match ban means the India captain will have time for an  introspective look as to where and when his Midas touch deserted  him as his team mates battle to avoid a series whitewash against  Australia in Adelaide.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni

Dhoni, who will miss next week’s fourth test after the ICC  banned him because of India’s slow over rate in the third test  defeat in Perth on Sunday, has enjoyed a fairytale rise from the  cricketing backwaters of the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand.

In what seemed like a storyline straight out of a Bollywood  script, he led teams to Twenty20 (2007) and 50-over (2011) World  Cup victories and oversaw their rise as the number one test team  in the world, thus convincing many he was India’s best captain  ever.

His unflappable leadership, as much as his tactical  brilliance and uncomplicated approach, impressed most, including  a management institute in his home town Ranchi which wanted to  do a brain-mapping of the Indian captain.

It was a fairytale too good to last long and Dhoni met his  Waterloo in England last year, a nightmare that returned to  haunt him in Australia.

Dhoni’s brand of leadership, which earned him the nickname  of ‘Captain Cool’, was ridiculed by a cricket expert who likened  him to a clerk in an Indian bank – with no real passion or  anger.

In England, where a 4-0 whitewash completed in August robbed  the team of the top test status last year, Dhoni could at least  blame it on injuries to key players.

In Australia, following two  innings defeats that have left  them trailing 3-0, he has no such luxury.

    SURPRISED   

For quite a while, Dhoni has not looked quite in command and  the Perth test was a good case in study.

The sheer rarity of the move to field an all-pace attack,  axing off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin to accommodate debutant  pace bowler Vinay Kumar, baffled most. “I’m surprised, a spinner could have exercised some control  here,” former captain Ravi Shastri rued on air as the Indian  pacers strayed their line and got hammered by Australian opener  David Warner on the first day.  In a way, Dhoni met his comeuppance and incurred a one-match  ban after India were found two overs short of target. It may not  have been the case had one of his frontline bowlers been a  spinner.