World Cup 2019: Why it is unfair to criticize Dhoni and Jadhav for ‘giving up’ the chase against England

There has been some very harsh criticism of the way MS Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav went about the run chase during the last five overs of Indian innings against England. The commentators on TV, both the British and Indian experts, bemoaned the fact that the two did not show any intent.

There is definitely some truth to this, but to solely blame this duo for India's defeat will only gloss over some other problems with the way India went about this chase.

To begin with, when a team is required to chase 338 runs, it is important to get off to a good start. Rahul's early loss and the very slow partnership thereafter between India's two best batsmen, where India could score only twenty eight runs in the first ten overs, meant India had to chase more than three hundred runs in forty overs!

Though Kohli and Rohit tried to accelerate after that, when Kohli departed, India were struggling to keep the required run rate in check. A lot was expected of Rishabh Pant at number four, but he showed a lot of immaturity and restlessness in his running and shot selection.

Rohit getting out immediately after getting a ton did not help matters. Hardik Pandya may have played some delectable shots, but his strike rate eventually was very similar to that of Dhoni, though the latter got the brick bats.

For the record, the Dhoni-Jadhav duo scored 39 runs in the last 5.1 overs of the Indian chase, and India lost by 31 runs. This means that they had to score seventy runs in about five overs for India to win – certainly not an impossible target.

But for that to happen, they would have had to take more risks, play some aerial shots, target even the good balls, and there would always be the risk of getting out, and in the process, expose the Indian tail which starts at number eight. That could have meant that the innings would fold quite quickly, making the margin of India’s defeat a bigger one and the net run rate significantly going down.

MS Dhoni must have calculated the pros and cons in his mind. To him, it was a smarter move to minimise the beating that the run rate would take after this loss. India may seem comfortably placed at the moment to qualify for the semi-finals, with eleven points and two matches still to play. India is the favourite to win those two matches, but stranger things have happened in cricket, and if India happens to lose the remaining matches, then net run rate may be a factor in deciding the semi-final spots, as New Zealand and Pakistan too may end up with the same number of points.

At the moment, it seems highly unlikely, but how likely was India to win the 1983 World Cup, or Pakistan the 1992 World Cup? It can be argued that Dhoni and Jadhav, especially the former, did the right thing by keeping the long term interests of the Indian team in this tournament in mind, at the cost of being pilloried by some ‘experts’ and all-knowing fans!

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