To be honest, I wanted to skim this. (Yes, I'm aware I'm being ironic.)

I've been lining up a few articles to take apart on this blog, and you'd think - given my oft-professed hero-worship of one Mahendra Singh Dhoni - that this one on Dhoni's captaincy by Ms Ugra would be on my list. You wouldn't be wrong, but, baaah. I don't know. I skimmed it - Dhoni's methods are instinctual, he should play more safe, Piyush Chawla Yusuf Pathan blah blah blah with some tangential yet cheeky references to his love of video-gaming and adventure sports (good god, woman, cricket captains have had worse hobbies in the past!). Ms Ugra's halfway snarky style also is not terribly becoming for the kind of sports writer she's supposed to be - I kind of want to keep saying, "A ha! Your grudge is showing, Ms. Ugra!" or "I C WHUT U DID THAR." as I read her stuff.

To me, it's just another example of the outpouring of the doubts that're emerging at this point in India's World Cup campaign. Oooh, Dhoni's haphazard approach to his team's composition has led to our ruin! Our ruin, I say! It's annoying, but par for the course. I trust my team. Even tomorrow, they can put up a crushing performance and these people will be falling over their feet in their rush for the thesauri to pen all the hyperbolic praises they can cook up. In the seven short years that I've been following cricket seriously, I've seen and heard enough to be pretty damn jaded.

HOWEVER.

I'm bored, and it's been a long time since I've really vented, so! I'm forcing myself to have a more in-depth look at Ms Ugra's article. *deep breath* Nothing for it. HEEERE we go. *pinches nose, takes the plunge*

The article is titled, "Is there madness in Dhoni's method?" Y'know, if you wanted to play on that expression, I'd've preferred a "to" instead of "in", but whatever. Nit-picking.

She starts off talking about a World Cup advert. Um, okay? There're about 43.8 billion of them on TV right now, but turns out she's talking about the one that goes, "The team doesn't win just like that, you've got to make it win." She then says:

Should Dhoni turn his attention away from his favourite off-field pastime of video-gaming and watch the advert, it might sound like an instruction directed at him as well.

Ahahahahaha. I must confess I haven't seen that ad, either, and my favourite past-time is watching cricket. But, hey. Whatever. It does sound like something the ad-people'll cook up this time of the year, so I concede that point. Also, not sure what to make of the reference to his love for video-gaming, or the fact that she makes some random ad sound like a freakin political documentary, but "instruction directed to him as well"? I'm not... sure what she means. Should Dhoni start inserting control chips into his players' minds so that he can make them play exactly according to his plans? Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Dhoni does fantasise about doing exactly that, given how much of a control freak he is.

She then talks about how his captaincy has been a smooth ride so far, relatively wrinkle-free. Well. Nothing succeeds like success, and all that jazz. But now, she says, NOW:

Now, suddenly, over the course of a few weeks of the World Cup, creases are beginning to show both in the Indian team and its captain. India's World Cup is still alive, but already gloomy calculations are being made as to how their place in the quarter-finals is actually not secure. For the first time since his oxygen-depleting ascent, neither is Dhoni's as captain. On Sunday against West Indies in Chennai, he will be watched closer than he has been in a long time.

I kind of want to dig up articles from the '09 controversy over the T20 WC. Y'know, the bits about the so-called Dhoni-Sehwag spat? That epic, infamous press-conference? Then the tournament itself, where his every decision of his was criticised roundly (including, I think, by Ms Ugra herself)? Or, going even further back, his decision to skip the Tests during the '08 Sri Lanka tour? Hell, even Kumble has publically disapproved of that decision, going on record saying that he believed India'd've won that series had Dhoni played. What about the '10 T20 WC tournament? What about the '09 Champions Trophy? What about his decision to play Ashwin instead of Bollinger in the Super Over in the '10 Champions League - another decision not a lot of people were happy with? What about his SOOPER-SEKRIT marriage? What about the time where he was alleged to have threatened to resign if the selectors didn't include RP Singh in the squad?

That stuff is just off the top of my head. I understand that his campaign has been much smoother compared to say, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Azharuddin - hell, any Indian captain, but looking at normal captaincy standards? That's pretty stressful. This is NOT the first time he and his methods have been criticised and doubted from all quarters, and it definitely will not be the last.

Then:

As startling as Dhoni's message may have been to his batsmen who played "for the crowd" on Saturday, it has not surprised them. Nor has it sent them, the India faithful will be relieved to hear, into despair or doubt. It is what Dhoni's modus operandi has always been: to speak directly, briefly and non-confrontationally to players; let them know what he believes needs to be done. In media briefings he does most of the same, but can frequently be snippy. Always, though, he will laboriously explain why he changed the batting or bowling order, chose to bat or chase, and then offer philosophical observations about hybrid fuel and life jackets.

Sweet mother of God.

I was a little surprised at the "play for the country, not the crowd" quote, too - ready with lame-ass snark about "what, people in the crowd are not part of the country, now?" but I do get what he means. The lower order seems too ready to give in to the lures of showmanship - particularly when the top order has been successful - instead of putting their head down and acknowledging when the going has gotten tough. It calls for a level of maturity that is admittedly tough to attain, especially since everybody starts complaining and whining loudly about it. Dhoni wants his batsmen to show that maturity. It makes sense.

"he has been frequently snippy"... ladies and gentlemen, I do believe we have out first "your grudge is showing!" moment. From what I've seen of Dhoni's press conferences (which, admittedly, is not much), he makes it a point to answer everything with a smile, even if he isn't forthcoming about everything. He has a cheeky way of avoiding stuff he doesn't/can't answer, and I have almost never seen him snap at any journalist/interviewer, no matter what the provocation. He doesn't drown himself in long-winded, pseudo-polite cliches, like, say, Rahul Dravid; neither does he go the "look at me! Aren't I measured and INTELLIGENT?" route of Kumara Sangakkara. If anything, he can be disarmingly to-the-point. And, as we know, reporters need vague fodder to misinterpret.

Oooh, and look, snark. I agree that Dhoni's philosophy can be bafflingly amusing sometimes, but they're harmless. And sometimes show a hell of a lot of insight. Plus, he's amazingly quotable, which I absolutely love about him.

Then she talks about some of his decisions in the World Cup so far: the ones that've provoked the most debate. The insistence on playing Piyush Chawla, for one. Yeah, yeah, I've criticised that decision roundly right from the beginning, but Dhoni has his reasons, as baffling and stupid as they are. I agree. The PC-over-Ashwin thing is a total brain-fade on the captain's part, not to mention Kirsten and the rest of the team management.

She also mentions a couple of decisions in the Nagpur match against the Saffers: the whole promoting Yusuf Pathan thing, and also choosing Nehra to bowl the final over. 'Kay. I dislike YP tremendously, but that's beside the point - he's in the team as a pinch-hitter. Period. Dhoni doesn't even ask him to bowl much; hell, Yuvraj Singh is ranked higher as a bowler, and gets mnany more overs. So, with 8-9 overs to go, several wickets in hand, Batting PP in progress, run-rate comfortably over 6.5, a guy who's been known to hit sixes at will, a guy who's had a lot of success recently against this very opposition - YOU DO THE MATH.

About Nehra bowling the final over - I remember going, "oh no. OH NO. Baaaad decision. BAAAD DECISION" at the TV while watching Dhoni hand the ball over to Nehra. Just a few minutes prior, I'd been willing to bet anything that Bhajji'd bowl the final over. Why?

1. He was smack-dab in the middle of a great spell
2. He was bowling three-four-run overs to batsmen in the slog overs even when his colleagues were getting hammered at the other end
3. It was Nehra's first match after an injury layoff.
4. Nehra had looked nowhere close to his best at any point in the match
5. NEHRA WAS NOT EVEN IN THE MIDDLE OF A SPELL. I swear to God! Zaheer finished his 10 over quota with the 49th over, bowling in tandem with Harbhajan. Bhajji had one more left in his kitty. Logic says "Harbhajan, you goddamn idiots!", but Dhoni had other ideas.

I get it, Nehra's experience in these kinds of last-over humdingers factored in Dhoni's reasoning. But what the hell, man? Don't play safe! If you'd taken a chance and gone for the spinner in the last over against a couple of bloodthirsty and desperate batsmen, there's a good chance we might've had a different result now!

I'll be expanding on this point after the next quote.

Until now Dhoni's has been captaincy by instinct over method, his own school of reasoning, and like with most captains once they gain greater control of their team, a healthy dose of obstinacy. In the last four years of his captaincy in the short game, if Dhoni had to be asked what was India's best ODI performance under his leadership, he would be choosing between the early CB Series win of 2008, an Asia Cup victory, or bilateral series wins in New Zealand and West Indies. Not such a tough choice, is it?

This "instinct-over-method" thing is a myth that irritates me every time I see/hear/read it. How is it so goddamn "instinctual" when you just said that he explains each and every decision in meticulous detail? Seriously, people! If anything, I believe that Dhoni reasons out his decisions way, way too much. He comes out to play with detailed plans in his head, and if it looks like it's not working, he builds - and executes - more plans. Not for him the "aah, whatever. Let's see what happens if I push this button." He's likely worked out every possibility, including contingency plans for if the button turns out to be a trigger for a nuclear-device. Sometimes, he just needs to say "whatever" to that brain of his and go with his gut.

"Obstinacy" - only recently? Dude, he's been a control-freak right from the beginning, and he's deeply possessive about his team - which can be a good thing and a bad thing. What about the time he insisted that seniors like Dravid and Ganguly should be dropped from the team to blood more youngsters? He was barely six months into his captaincy!

I have very, very fond memories of the CB series win - I rank it above the '07 T20 win, above the Asia Cup, above every damn thing India's won so far - hell, the crowning moment from that series is my banner for this blog. But that line's unfair to India's progress as a team over the last four years. We've won every bilateral series except the last, reached more finals than I can count, and are you forgetting the series win against SL in '08. Given the circumstances under which that came, I rank it much, much higher than our '10 Asia Cup win.

Besides, what was the point of that sentence, Ms Ugra? Dhoni's arrogance and obstinacy is somehow preventing India from winning tournaments? Their winning patterns haven't changed a bit over the last four years.

Now Dhoni's decisions, made using both reason and instinct, are backfiring often because their basic premises may be incorrect. Why should the cotton-woolling of Chawla not be interpreted as cricket's version of babysitting? [...] Or how about No. 4 being Virat Kohli's sacrosanct spot, before or after which he should ideally not be sent? Kohli is 22. Should he not be running loose wherever and whenever he is sent? Yuvraj Singh has spent all but 41 matches of his ODI career flitting between Nos. 4, 5 and 6, Rahul Dravid has kept wicket in ODIs, Sourav Ganguly broke one of the most successful ODI partnerships for India to go down to No. 3, Virender Sehwag went from being a middle-order batsman to an opener who has redefined the Test-match art itself.

Chawla is being babysat, and it sucks. I don't disagree. But it looks like that's ended, and Ashwin's comin' back, which, yay. \o/

The rest of the paragraph is giving me a headache. What IS that sentence about Virat Kohli? I don't know if my reading comprehension has broken down, or if it really makes little to no sense. Is she saying the team ought to be more flexible? Is that it? From the obligatory comments on Dravid and Ganguly, that's kind of what I can deduce. Whatever.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND YOU, MS. UGRA. One of the main complaints regarding Kohli was that he wasn't being sent in at number four often enough! He's not a pinch-hitter, he's not the kind of batsman that Yuvraj and Dhoni are - he's the type of fussy top-order player who needs to be assured of an early enough spot in the batting order where he can settle in and work his mojo. Have you seen him at 3 and 4 over the last year? No. 4 is the only option available to him, given Sehwag, Sachin and Gambhir practically walk into nos 1, 2 and 3! I mean, weren't you just complaining about YP being pushed up and down? Or Dhoni employing himself as a floater? Dhoni has said about a billion times that he wants this order to be as flexible as possible, to match with the game-situation.

Then - OH GOD WHAT IS THIS.

To move Yusuf Pathan up the order in a match against one of the best attacks in the World Cup on a wicket that was stopping was again based on a formula that the openers had given the platform and the pace of the innings needed to be amped up. [...] Against Ireland, Pathan (30 off 24 balls, two fours three sixes) was pitch perfect. Against Dale Steyn in the Powerplay, he should have been the last option. Like all captains Dhoni also has his players of choice who are given more licence, and his team recognises instinctively who those players are. Unfortunately for Dhoni his captaincy has not coincided with the discovery of new match-winners, like those found under Sourav Ganguly, for example.

I don't know, I guess the batting order was bein' flexible when they decided to push YP up the order? Aaaalso, let me remind you of YP's recent history: against the very same opposition, the very same 'he's-so-goddamn-unplayable' Dale Steyn, in said opposition's home ground, he has played match-winning innings! Even when the rest of 'em: Tendulkar, Yuvraj, Dhoni, what-have-you, had failed. How quick we are to forget. It was worth a shot, at any rate.

Also, the nonsense with "players of choice"... "given more licence." Suuure. Dhoni plays favourites every now and then. What a shock. Hold me, I think I'm going to faint.

Another underhanded comparison with Sourav Ganguly aside, Dhoni hasn't found matchwinners? Seriously? He's not nurtured the progress of Gautam Gambhir? He's not propped up Yuvraj Singh, unleashed the bowler within him? Virat Kohli? What the hell are you going on about? It's a great disservice to these players to say that they haven't been giving match-winning performances over the last few years, and to think that the budding players under Dhoni's captaincy can't blossom into match-winners later.

No, really. Think about it. You call Dhoni a Ganguly-discovery. But apart from the 148 against Pak, he only started to come into his own under Dravid, and only under his own captaincy did he grow into his potential! Yuvraj? Was going nowhere, until Dhoni gave him a bit of rope. Ditto to Harbhajan. And Irfan Pathan? Yeeeah, right. Who else? Ashish Nehra? Has just come from the wilderness. Zaheer Khan? Terribly erratic before he finally decided to get his butt over to England and play a couple of seasons of county cricket. Mohammad Kaif? I laugh at you.

When a captain's instinct starts to head off in a direction where things do not go the way he wants, they sometimes overwhelm and undermine reason.

She provides the example of Harbhajan not being allowed to bowl immediately at Duminy, despite Duminy's weakness against the former. That's not a failure of instinct; that's Dhoni being too rigid, like I've said before.

THEN she discusses the Harbhajan v Nehra decision for the last over in Nagpur:

The decision between Nehra and Harbhajan Singh became a 50-50 toss-up, with the spinner offering to bowl the 49th so that the team's most nerveless bowler, Zaheer Khan, could send down the 50th. If the 49th goes well - like it did for the Indians against South Africa in Nagpur, where Zaheer conceded four - the man bowling the 50th at least has a buffer. So far it had gone to Dhoni's plan. Nehra was the moment Dhoni gambled, because he has been India's best ODI bowler over the last year, the go-to man at the death.

[...]

Nehra has bowled the final over for India four times in his career, the two now forgotten instances being Karachi, the first ODI of the electric 2004 India-Pakistan series and against West Indies in a 2005 tri-series in Colombo, which took India to the final. Nagpur was the first time India lost. Before the World Cup he had taken 73 wickets since his comeback into the Indian team in June 2009. Why should Dhoni not have gone to him? Other than the fact that he may not have been warmed up not having bowled for 12 overs. It was a logical gamble that didn't work. Pathan and Chawla are the illogical gambles - they were perhaps doomed to tank.

(I can never forget that Karachi match, btw. Fond, fond memories. That Kaif catch to dismiss Abdul Razzaq, the way he smashed into Hemang Badani, practically tripped over his face but still managed to hold on to the ball? EPIC.)

I'm glad you have given it the Seal of Logical Approval, but this works against your argument that YP should not have been promoted. Wasn't Dhoni going by history there too? How are the two decisions different? Shouldn't Dhoni have been a little more reckless and thought about giving Harbhajan the final over?

We finally come to the end of the article:

As much as Dhoni wants his batsmen to "curb their instincts", it is the best time for his leadership to internalise the same message. Since his debut for India in 2004, he has changed his batting to eliminate risk, yet he will not bat higher up the order as Ganguly repeatedly beseeches him to do in both commentary and column. He has a better average and 100-plus strike rate batting at either No. 3 or 4, but has done so in only 32 of 162 innings. His keeping has vastly improved from the 2007 version, and he still remains one of India's better runners between wickets. The match versus West Indies may have to mark the moment that his leadership evolves in a different direction. Or it could take a route he would rather not contemplate.

Um. Y'know, I want to see Dhoni up the order, too. I really do. Who will he have to displace, then? Sachin, Sehwag, Gambhir, even Kohli - outta the question. Yuvraj? I don't know, he does play you-go-first-I-go-first a lot with Yuvraj, mostly when he wants a right-left combo in the middle. Thing is, it's a much tougher decision than it looks on the outside. He's fashioning himself as a finisher - the guy with the levellest head in the team, the guy who can come in, take stock of things and play according to it. To whom else can he entrust this role? YP? I don't think so.

Yeah, the match against the Windies is going to be pretty important. Probably not for the same reasons that a lot of people think, but yeah. Whatcha gonna do, Mahi? Throw caution to the winds for once?

(Hint: PLAY ASHWIN!)