Managing chaos, Dhoni’s new mantra

Indian cricket has never seen and maybe, would never see a calmer person than Mahendra Singh Dhoni, especially in nail-biting finishes

The way the Indian captain handled the Bengaluru cauldron against Bangladesh on Wednesday left everyone wondering as to how Captain Cool could actually be composed in nail-biting finishes. And Dhoni revealed the secret of his composure. 

The skipper admitted that it was difficult to manage the last over. “I think what is important is to listen to everyone. In situations like this it is literally a chaos and you are the one trying to manage chaos,” he said. 

According to Dhoni, there were a lot of calculations involved in the last over. “Everyone will come and have his own opinion but what one has to do is to see what the strength of a batsman is, who is batting at that point of time. And it does not end there, there are a lot of other factors on how the wicket is behaving, whether there is reverse swing or not and much more,” Dhoni said. 

Dhoni said it was important for him have conviction on who needs to bowl and what kind of a delivery before passing on the message to the bowler. “I feel what really helps is listening to all of them, but at the end of the day you push the bowler to bowl what you feel is good at that point of time. 

If I am convinced that this is something that I want to do, then I go ahead and do it,” the skipper added. The captain said it was an easy decision to zero in on Pandya for the last over and emphasised the need to back the bowler’s strengths. 

“It was quite an easy decision, the reason being the batsmen were scoring freely and I knew that I had to take that one over from somebody, be it a spinner or Pandya. Often choosing the bowler is an easy task. I would want to give the bowler that cushion of extra runs and back their strengths and if the bowler is able to execute the plans, we’ll be on the winning side,” Dhoni added. 

Dhoni lauded Hardik Pandya for executing the plans well. “We were just discussing what would be a good length to bowl. Whether to go for yorkers, and if so, whether you want to bowl it on the stumps or wide outside off-stump. 

Depending on the bowler, you have to consider what the best options are, so that is what we were discussing. I feel he (Pandya) executed the plans well,” he added.