Wise Dhoni!

Before we get into the zone of high intense test match cricket, pondering upon about MS Dhoni’s statement before he left for Australia would be a very good exercise. His quote on an unclear future has stirred up a clichéd debate - player burnout and fallouts of too much cricket. There is sense of ambiguity about what he has said and has posed serious concern as far as Indian fans are concerned. Dhoni would be 33-34 by the time the Indian side sets out to defend its world title and going by the norm modern-day legends viz. Tendulkar, Ponting, Dravid, Kallis et al. have set with respect to career durations, Dhoni’s statement would sound a bit exaggerated and may be a bit out of place. Look deeper and you will find that his words aren’t quite out of proportion or context. The 2nd most successful wicket-keeper - Adam Gilchrist played the game for 12 years, and about 9 years of test cricket. Take the clock back a little behind; Jeff Dujon had a 10 year long stint in international cricket. MS Dhoni has started out in 2004 and if he is to trace a similar path, his career starts to near its end in a couple of year’s time: bottomline wicketkeepers don't have a long international career (barring exceptions!). 

Jeff Dujon had a workload of 57 days of international cricket days per year (on an average), Gilchrist 72 & MS Dhoni so far 89! Couple Dhoni’s workload to a competitive T20 domestic cricket every year and that workload would appear exhaustive. He has earned repute for being fit and competitive throughout his career, maybe realises that he can’t really go on in this vein for too long. But it isn’t as simple as it first appears, therein lies an opportunity to lookout for reasons for Dhoni to say that he doesn’t trust his body as he used to. It might be a mere coincidence that Dhoni’s words have come on the back of Dravid’s zestful speech at the Sir Don oration, but in a way they endorse Dravid’s view that context-less games are taking the game and its players nowhere. With injuries hovering around India’s dressing room, Dhoni has been forced to not take a break from the game as much as he would have liked to. The fatigue factor might have amplified with the frequent travelling modern-day players have to live with.

There is another side to this whole issue, and holds true especially for MS Dhoni. After taking over the reins of captaincy, Dhoni has led his sides to wins in WC T20, 50-over WC, IPL, and CL T20 & also towards the test no. 1 ranking. After you reach the summit, it becomes difficult to motivate yourself; and maybe a sense of satisfaction might have crept in. He would love to recreate the story once again, like he has said, but he would know that it would be very difficult for him to give the same (physically) as he isn’t getting any younger. Another aspect around this topic is that you could think of him being very aware of his fitness. Probably, he senses that his body has started to struggle to cope up with the demands of expectations in all forms of the game. You might find him going down the path laid by likes of Malinga, who has quit first-class cricket to play only T20 cricket; somebody like a freelance T20 cricketer.

So what does the future hold for Dhoni? Will the selectors and board officials force him to be around the next WC to defend the title? Questions aplenty and thoughts over them would be nothing more than mere hypothesis at the moment. For him to be around 2015, he would need to curb something; Test cricket, IPL or maybe just give up wicket-keeping for the sake of being in the picture. The biggest advantage Dhoni brings to the side is the fact the team can afford to play 6 frontline batsmen and not worry about runs from its wicket-keeper. Since Dhoni has arrived on the scene, no other keeper has got a long run in international cricket; which hasn’t allowed any other keeper to be groomed in case Dhoni decides to give up his gloves. We all are witnessing a very interesting phase in Australian cricket; Ponting hanging around (or probably forced to do so) as their set-up demands his presence in the current scenario. Visualize Indian cricket in 2-3 year’s time; probably no Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman and Zaheer, which would imply Dhoni would be left with Sehwag & Yuvraj as the senior pros. In that case, there is no doubt Dhoni might have to go the Ponting way, stick around atleast till the WC.

MS Dhoni has been India’s most successful captain in terms of numbers; his success partially a by-product of the foundations that were laid much before he became the captain and mostly of him being calm, composed and competitive. With a hazy future looming over his career, India would want its captain to carry on as long as possible. He deserves respect for whatever decision he takes with respect to his career in the next couple of years. His contribution to Indian cricket and specially the current side has been immense and is indeed worthy of expressing his will to continue or stop playing international cricket. He may have reasons for what he has said or what he executes later, but at the moment we shouldn’t force him to speak out his mind; maybe that would be an exercise once he hangs up his boots. Dhoni's assessment on his body might turn-out to be incorrect, but you cannot deny that his evaluation is fair and wise!