Is MS Dhoni still the finisher India needs?

The eyes said it all. Disappointment ineluctable, even if it didn't matter a great deal in the bigger picture. This wasn't the first time that this happened in the recent past but this one seemed different. Even if it was on a day in which nothing went right, the eyes still couldn't quite believe that the job wasn't done.

On countless occasions before this, those eyes were glistening and made a billion people smile. But after the match that joined a growing list of late, those eyes seemed lost. Almost as lost as he seemed in the balcony, crestfallen after a defeat, which was by no means his fault but one that he would have avoided in his sleep a few years ago.

After all, his was a reputation that was built on exactly such pressure situations, high-intensity chases were his bread and butter and no matter what the place, time or the scenario, he backed himself to get through it all.

In an almost similar scenario in 2013, the final of the tri-nation series against Sri Lanka, MS Dhoni needed 15 off the last over with the last batsman for company and got India home with two balls to spare. On this occasion, he only needed 16 off the last two overs but he failed to finish the job.

But this one was different. Not only because it ended in defeat, no, even the best can falter at times, but because of what preceded the defeat and produced those empty eyes.

Uncharacteristically slow day

If there is one thing that symbolises the style of cricket that Dhoni often plays, it is not the sixes that stay in the memory of fans forever, or the brute power that he generates using every sinew of his body but it is his running between the wickets and ability to find the gaps.

However, in the fourth ODI even that deserted him. That he only hit a solitary boundary was undoubtedly surprising but even more so was his inability to find the gaps and keep the scoreboard ticking, which is an integral facet of his play.

The spinners tied him down and his strike rate against the spin duo of Devendra Bishoo and Ashley Nurse was worse than his overall strike rate of 47.36, his lowest in ODIs.

Extra Cover: Stats: MS Dhoni registers his slowest ODI fifty

His timing was off, he wasn't able to rotate the strike and the slowness of the pitch that resulted in just three sixes being hit in almost 100 overs meant that he couldn't even release the pressure by wielding the long handle.

Yet, he had seen this all before. He had done this enough to know that his one-on-one battles against the bowler in the final over of the innings are the stuff of legends. Surely, he knew that all he had to do was to take it to the final over and the weight of history will be on his side. Surely, that is all he had to do, one more time.

But alas! The iceman of Indian cricket lost his cool. Last over finishes were his raison d'etre and yet Dhoni didn't want to take it to the final over this time around. He could have just taken a single off the last ball of Kesrick Williams' over and given himself 13 to get off the last over from Jason Holder.

The West Indies captain might have picked up the Man of the Match award in the fourth ODI, but had conceded 17 runs off the last over in the previous ODI, with Dhoni hitting two sixes. In his last 3.5 overs at the death, he had conceded 59 runs.

He was there for the taking, but uncharacteristically, Dhoni blinked first. Having made a career out of waiting for the mistake from the opponent and not blinking first, he did, on this occasion.

Unfortunately, for him and India, like his batting for most of the day, timing deserted him and despite the power that came from those muscles, it wasn't enough and he holed out to long on and with that went India's hopes of sealing the series in Antigua.

But all is still far from lost, India still only need to win the last ODI and they will still claim the series 3-1, which if not as convincing, is still a overseas series win nonetheless. But the bigger worry is Dhoni.

Not his form, which has been exceptional in 2017, in which he has already scored nearly 400 runs at an average of 64.33 with a century and three fifties in just nine innings, but his role in the side.

The future is now

Even on a day in which he failed to time the ball or pick the gaps, he still found time. Not just at the crease on a day in which he recorded his slowest ODI fifty but also to speak to the players who are in line to take his throne and become India's next finisher.

After a six that Hardik Pandya hit off the bowling of Roston Chase in the 44th over, Dhoni was keen to talk to the youngster about the benefits of hitting with the wind and showing him that irrespective of the power that he wields his willow with, science and logic need to be taken into account as well.

His reflexes were still as sharp as they were before, running those ones and twos and whipping off the bails before you could even blink, but the finisher's instinct is slowly starting to fade. And perhaps the fourth ODI was him finally starting to come to terms with it and realising that he needs to groom his successor.

Perhaps those empty eyes were an augury of the death of the finisher as we know it. He might be 35 but as his form in 2017 has shown, he still has plenty to offer to the Indian side, as a batsman with his preternatural reading of the game, as a mentor to Virat Kohli, who is still just learning the ropes as captain and as a keeper, for he still has the fastest hands in the east.

The end might be near but hopefully that is just the end of one chapter of his career and the start of a brand new one.