Dhoni is convinced that this is not the lowest point of his international career
India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni believes the current struggles of the national team cannot even be compared to the hardships they endured after losing the 2007 International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cup.
Even after being whitewashed on their tour to England and Australia in 2011 to early 2012 and being humiliated once again by the English on their home soil before losing to arch-rivals Pakistan in a limited overs series, Dhoni stated that this was nowhere close to being the lowest point of his international career.
“It has been tough,” Dhoni said. “But there are not many things that will come close to when we lost the 2007 50-over World Cup. This is not even close to that.”
Dhoni noted that India were merely going through a rebuilding stage and would bounce back from their recent failures.
“We are going through a tough time, we are going through a stage where we will have to see what will work for us,” Dhoni said. “A few big players for us have left us. Youngsters coming up will have to fill the gap, and seniors will have to take extra responsibility till the juniors start getting runs or start taking wickets.”
Dhoni also mentioned that it was wrong of many people to judge spinner Piyush Chawla’s performance during the final Test, given the fact that their criticisms were solely based only one match.
“It’s very difficult if you assess a youngster based on one performance,” Dhoni said. “You have to see how they go once they play a few games. They will get the exposure. Not to forget Piyush came after five years so he will feel the nerves. It wasn’t a fantastic wicket for him to bowl.
“There was no pace. It’s very difficult to deceive the batsman with his wrong’un or the legbreaks. You have to analyse everything. Just don’t see the stats – so many overs, so many maidens, so many runs, wicket column empty – and think you have bowled badly. We have seen you get wickets off full tosses or caught at point through a cut. We need to analyse honestly to see if the batsman or the bowler is doing well. It’s not only the runs that say the batsman is batting well or five wickets in the bowler’s case.”
The Indian captain stated that it was especially important to continue supporting and backing the youngsters throughout their transition period from first-class cricket to the world of international cricket.
“What you need to see is if you don’t give youngsters chances how do you know whether they are good enough or not?” Dhoni said. “You won’t get all of them scoring big hundreds in their first game. Some of the big players, they started off with even four or five zeros.
“You have to back youngsters who you think are very talented. Who you think can succeed at the top level. Even if they don’t score in a few games, it is important to back them. It’s about trying them and giving them a chance to prove themselves. Scoring runs in domestic cricket is not a certain sign they will score at the top level but you have to back them so you know with proper exposure at first-class level and proper backing at international level, at some time they will start scoring.”
Dhoni admitted that England’s batsmen and pace bowlers had been a class above India’s throughout the entire series.
“In this series the batting was the department that was lacking,” he said. “In the sense we needed to score more runs. Mumbai was a tough wicket, but apart from that we were not able to get into big partnerships.
“In cricket it’s not about who is scoring how many runs. It’s about between two individuals how big the partnership is. We were not really able to have those big partnerships that can have the big impact, especially when playing in subcontinent.”
India’s spin duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha were completely outshone by England’s Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar for most of the series, while Dhoni conceded that pace bowler James Anderson had also played a crucial role in England’s 2-1 win.
“Anderson bowled very well throughout the series on wickets that there was no help for the fast bowler,” he said. “That was crucial. He tested the batsmen all the time. In his second or third spell when he started to get reverse and yet the ball was slightly on the harder side. The major difference between the two sides was James Anderson who bowled really well.”
When asked if the cricketing community will ever see iconic batsman Sachin Tendulkar again, Dhoni simply said: “I hope so.”
His answer about whether Tendulkar had told him anything regarding his retirement was even shorter as he said: “No.”