India is out of the T 20 World Cup and the whole country is in mourning. Captain Dhoni’s stock is at an all time low and he is being severely criticized by the experts and the layman alike for his poor tactics. In order to reduce the overwhelming anger directed at him he has blamed the world cup debacle on post IPL parties, saying that the players were fatigued because of staying up all the night, well if indeed it is true, which I think it is not, why didn’t he raise this issue with the concerned authorities during the IPL. He is simply giving silly excuses to save his skin. The fact of the matter is that India played pathetically in every department of the game; batting, bowling and fielding. It was extraordinarily consistent in defeat losing all the three matches in the super eight stage, the only team to do so. , quite a feat indeed.The players did not seem motivated enough.

Cricket is a team game and it is not right to single the captain out for criticism. But when the team wins it is the captain who is praised and applauded and when the reverse happens he gets brickbats. While most of the players didn’t perform well, let’s analyse how Dhoni performed as a batsman. He scored only 149 runs in five matches, 29 being his highest. So he not only performed badly as a captain but also as a batsman. In fact under Dhoni’s captaincy India has not performed well in the two of the three T20world cups, and even for the famous first world cup trophy we should be thankful to Misbah Ul Haque for that miscued shot., for had he succeeded in clearing the fence , the story would have been completely different.

Dhoni gives his best only in IPL matches, he leads from the front, uses correct tactics to defeat the opponent, performs well as a batsman ,as evidenced in the just concluded IPL, while in the international T20 competitions his magic deserts him. Do post your comments.