A year before World Cup, MS Dhoni should do a Sourav Ganguly

Sourav Ganguly brought back Javagal Srinath to the ODI side in 2003 to lead India’s bowling attack in the World Cup

Back in 2002, India churned out a set of potential young fast bowlers up its sleeves. These bowlers were Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Ajit Agarkar and Harbhajan Singh.

Although all of them were bright, still they were pretty young and a touch of restlessness amongst them could be sensed. Agreed that Agarkar was a known name in the international cricket, having started his journey on a high by reaching first 50 wickets in ODIs before anyone else (till then), yet he was quite inconsistent on a consistent basis.

At the same time, due to injuries and being ignored by the national selectors, the earlier year, Javagal Srinath was contemplating to quit from ODIs too, after recently retiring from the Test cricket.

At this juncture, Sourav Ganguly realized how he needed the services of Srinath if he had to have any significant achievement in the World Cup to be held in about an year’s time in South Africa. He convinced Srinath not to get retire and instead requested him to be the spearhead of India’s bowling attack till the end of WC 2003 campaign.

Yuvraj Singh had once told in an interview how Ganguly would designate different captains on the field; like he was appointed as a fielding captain, Dravid the batting captain and Srinath was made the bowling captain.

Thus, his role was not only limited to being a spearhead but also to supervise, guide, and assist his fellow bowlers as well. When World Cup 2003 ended, Zaheer had 18 wickets in his tally, Nehra and Srinath had 15 and 16 wickets respectively. India might have finished only second to Australia, but got a much settled, learnt, and matured attack.

Need of the hour is for MSD to go a Ganguly, and call Zaheer Khan back in the ODI side

Now, in 2014, MS Dhoni has a similar problem to deal with. Although talented, a sense of calmness is missing from the Indian bowling camp, just like it was the case in 2002.

Ishant Sharma is a reminiscent of Ajit Agarkar, while Shami has shown a spark of brilliance like Zaheer showed during his younger days.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar is a potential dark horse that Ashish Nehra was and Ravichandran Ashwin is equally talented as Harbhajan Singh was then.

Hence, with World Cup just a year away, India needs another Javagal Srinath to make things right for MD Dhoni and the team.

It’s not a tough job to identify such a player. Yes, it is Zaheer Khan. But what’s difficult is that MS Dhoni has to realise this quickly. We have often seen that MSD can be quite rigid and stubborn with his choices and decisions and only on rare occasions he backtracks.

And for this very reason, it seems highly unrealistic that Dhoni will go back to Zak. But he should understand the need of the hour and include Zaheer in the ODI team for the very same reasons why Javagal Srinath was requested to play in 2002-03.

Not just to bring some sanity to the Indian bowling but also to groom a set of fast bowlers who in-spite of having potential are not able to perform as per the required standards.

This will definitely help India and their bowling in the long run, but for this, Dhoni has to do a Ganguly, Will he or won’t he? Only time will tell, but I choose to be optimistic!