West Indies Tri-series 2013 Final: India vs SL - Deciphering last few overs of the chase

MS Dhoni

The moment I saw the pitch assisting bowlers – both spin and pace – in the final of tri-nation ODI series against Sri Lanka at the Queen’s Park Oval, Trinidad, I knew this would have to come to Mahendra Singh Dhoni to take India home.

Shikhar Dhawan‘s magical touch is fizzing out finally, after his magnificent comeback to international cricket. Rohit Sharma eventually gives it away after getting to a laboured half-century, at best. DK is in dreadful form. Suresh Raina‘s effect usually gets nullified outside the subcontinent on testing surfaces. Virat Kohli was the one standing in the way and his early dismissal only reaffirmed my notion that India will make heavy weather of the chase.

Once Ravindra Jadeja got out, I was just curious to know what way Dhoni would opt to go. Yes, I have seen endless knocks of him, taking the chase to the last over and eventually knock the opposition out.

But here in the final, the situation was different in so many ways. He did not have a proper batsman at the other end, had plenty of overs to face and a handful of runs to get on a pretty challenging track (50 runs needed off 12.4 overs). Adding to that, he was not completely fit and all he had for company were three tail-enders.

I was just hoping that he would not start playing aggressive shots. You don’t win matches on such tracks in limited overs cricket by hogging the strike, where shot making is not easy. You need to wait for the kill and Dhoni did exactly that.

Also,there was absolutely no necessity for that option with all of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Vinay Kumar and Ishant Sharma capable of biding time if Dhoni could see Malinga out for the latter two, as with them you are never too far away from a brain fade even with such a composed brain at the other end.

While Indian batsmen can pretty much make Lasith Malinga look like a laughing stock, the bowlers would obviously struggle to face him. Also, the advantages of taking it to last over as against trying to hit your way out are - you can get extra deliveries, runs for those extras, these days free-hits also and lapse in concentration from opposition that could help.

Sri Lankan captain Angelo Mathews helped India’s cause by feeding Malinga to Dhoni at the start of 39th over. Why would you want to do that? Dhoni has not changed gears yet and along with Kohli, plays Malinga the best. Wouldn’t it make more sense to just reserve his quota of four overs and unleash him when tail-enders take strike?

Winning is all about maximising your opportunity. You can’t get away with such mistakes against a batsman of Dhoni’s quality. He faced all the six balls of that over, scored 8 runs and protected Bhuvi earlier in that process too. This being exactly why cricket craves for better captains these days. That was when Sri Lanka lost the plot, much before Dhoni started to stamp his authority in the game.

Dhoni-Bhuvi:

Bhuvi, who has shown a remarkable understanding of the game in his short international career, will do what is expected of him. ‘Just defend’ is the mantra for tailenders when you have Dhoni at the other end. So I did not expect Dhoni to protect Bhuvi against Malinga, and obviously not against lesser bowlers too.

Dhoni rotated the strike around with Bhuvi just ‘dead batting’ all that came at him. India needed 50 off 76 balls, and you know when you can’t win on your own, all you need to do is protect your wicket to give the more accomplished batsman the best chance you could.

After saving Bhuvi against Malinga earlier, Dhoni showed more faith in him in Malinga’s next over, 41st over of the game. Dhoni took the single off the very first ball and turned the strike over to Bhuvi.

You cannot really complain against Dhoni for that there. With hitting boundaries apparently becoming difficult to execute and able tail-enders to help, he needed to look for runs that came his way. Bhuvi comfortably negotiated his first three deliveries from Malinga. But the next one was just too good that it went past his defence.

India then needed 35 off 49 deliveries. Dhoni had single-handedly reduced the target by 15 runs with Bhuvi contributing nothing. All Vinay Kumar had to do now was exactly what Bhuvi did – just defend, play along the ground and let Dhoni finish the game.

Dhoni and Vinay- The real game begins!

Vinay Kumar could bat too, but I am not so sure if he can keep his head down and try not to do anything silly. So he should not have been exposed to Malinga and at the same time, Dhoni turning down scoring opportunities was not an option.

Wisely, Dhoni continued to bat the normal way, letting Vinay face Mathews, Suranga Lakmal and Shaminda Eranga. It was in the 43rd over, 9th of Malinga, when Dhoni first started protecting a fellow batsman and rightfully so. I was really nervous for the first two balls of that over, which Vinay had to face, but nothing happened.

In fact, he managed to get a single and bring Dhoni on strike. Dhoni later refused the single off the fourth ball of the 44th over, with the ball going towards third man. The trust in Bhuvi was not there this time in case of Vinay. He did not try to score off the next two deliveries and yet another over of Malinga was seen off without a big fuss, with only one more left of him.

The next over, Vinay sliced a delivery to third man and Dhoni was happy to come back for a second. Runs were important too and Vinay, if he applied himself, could face all other bowlers in the Sri Lankan line-up except Malinga.

That could be the logic, which indeed turned out to be true later. Interestingly, he refused a single off the last delivery of the 45th over and soon criticism followed on social media. Was it so difficult to understand that the single would have let Vinay on strike against Malinga, the next over?

Eventually Malinga did not bowl the 46th over but he could have very well bowled it and took both the remaining wickets with MSD left stranded at the other end. As expected, Vinay lost his composure and played a wild shot off Mathews, with only 20 needed off 23 balls, only to lose his wicket.

Dhoni-Ishant Sharma:

India needed 19 runs off 18 deliveries with one complete over of Malinga left. In a situation where Dhoni could not take any risks and Ishant would find it extremely difficult to survive Malinga’s bag of tricks, I lost hope. Even for a batsman of Dhoni’s class, it was a bit too much to ask.

But Mathews’s error came to India’s rescue yet again. He unleashed Malinga’s last over against Dhoni who happily played out the entire over, and saw off what could have been the match deciding six deliveries, scoring a couple of runs in the process too.

His intentions were clear – to save the tailender from Malinga. He even refused to let Ishant face a single ball of Malinga (refer 47th over, 5th ball). Had that single been taken, and Ishant survived the remaining one delivery, Dhoni would have got the strike for the entire next over. But Dhoni was shrewd enough to understand that one ball from Malinga posed a greater threat to the tailenders than six balls from any other Sri Lankan bowler.

Ishant had to face the entire 49th over, courtesy the correctly refused single. The only way Mathews, the bowler, looked like getting Ishant out in that over was by running him out, courtesy the panic that struck the tall Indian fast bowler. It looked like Dhoni had more belief in Ishant’s batting skills than Ishant himself.

Ishant has done it time and again in Test matches for India. Yet, he was not confident of himself in this format with the only difference here being the ever increasing run-rate. That shouldn’t have been an issue actually, as the instructions were clear for him to just preserve his wicket.

The over was seen off safely with Dhoni even coming back for a couple of runs off the second last ball. A single was avoided as chances were that Dhoni would have been stuck at the striker’s end for the last two balls, unable to get the strike back for the final over.

Then things would have got very difficult. Rather, he trusted Ishant to see off two more balls and Ishant didn’t disappoint.

Dhoni then finished off the game, hitting a six, four and another six off the last over.

Having seen very little play of Michael Bevan, Dhoni will obviously go down as the greatest finisher in my books. Overall, he has to be better though, as he is doing all this with the added responsibility of wicket-keeping and captaincy.

In my opinion, Dhoni’s tactical aspect of captaincy is weak (latest example – keeping Cheteshwar Pujara out of the team with World Cup 2015 at Australia and New Zealand plus two new balls and bat Dhoni (himself) way too low down the order at no.6) but as a one day international player, he is as good as you can get.

He was being blasted at, both for taking and turning down singles throughout the last 10 overs of the game. But there was planning behind every run taken and every run refused.

All the way throughout his career, he has been criticised despite performing well. But that is none of his problem, and the fans need to honour his contribution.

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Edited by Staff Editor