How long can we keep defending Dhoni?

We will never know. Maybe the only feasible way to deduce what would have happened is to transport ourselves to a parallel universe where Guptill’s throw would have missed the stumps and rewatch the game there. And maybe in that universe, Dhoni’s presence made no difference to the game whatsoever. Maybe, like he’d been doing for 71 balls prior to his dismissal, he just scrambled and ‘dotted’ his way to trouble and maybe, like Malinga did to him in the 2014 WT20 final, Boult choked him and did not let him get away. We will never know.

It would be naive, of course, to berate Dhoni for not attempting to smash the ball out of the ground from ball one - he did, after all, walk in at a near-impossible situation, with his side needing 103 off 38. But his inability and stubbornness to not switch gears in the midst of Faf’s superlative knock was appalling. 

However, the CSK skipper, for reasons only he knows, wouldn’t even attempt to hit a single boundary off his next four balls. By the time he ‘attempted’ to hit a boundary, du Plessis had added 17 more runs and perished, the required run rate had climbed over 36 and Rajasthan had won the match. Put simply, Dhoni’s abhorrent lack of intent robbed Faf and CSK of what could have been one of the greatest heists in T20 history. 

What’s irksome about Dhoni’s knock is not that he did not get the job done. It’s that he did not even try. There were plenty - and I mean plenty - of chances for him to shift gears. He could and should have been more proactive in the 16th Jofra Archer over where he played two dots and took a single to finish the over off, there was a golden opportunity in the 17th Unadkat over where he took two harmless singles and, even post that, there was the first ball of the 18th over bowled by Tom Curran where he could so easily have turned it up. But no, he wouldn’t do that until the 3rd ball of the final over, by which the game was already gone and Curran was only trying to not bowl a no-ball. As Gambhir noted, Dhoni hit three non-relevant sixes after the game was over and scored some ‘personal runs’ to boost his statistics.

It is funny how the moment Dhoni plays a bad knock, people are out with their calculators talking about “Net Run Rate”, talking about ‘optimization of resources’ and what not. If NRR were a thing, Dhoni could easily have asked Jadeja and Chahar to block it out in case he’d gotten out - both batsmen are capable enough to do that. It is not like CSK were 68/6 chasing 200 for them to be worried about NRR. They were, at one point, 58 runs shy off victory boasting of a batsman who’d scored 44 off his previous 12 balls. If, as a captain, you’re thinking about NRR, without even showing intent, when your side still has an outside chance of winning, then you need to take a good look at yourself in the mirror. 

And maybe Dhoni should do just that: take a good look at himself in the mirror. His post-match comments reeked of excuses and, for a captain who has built a reputation as a team man, him throwing Lungi Ngidi under the bus was detestable, to say the least. 

For starters, the whole statement about his batting position - and approach - made no sense. If he knew deep down that he was rusty, then he had no business coming in at No.7 and eating balls just to ‘get the feel back’; in that case, he should, ideally have, come in at No.4 or No.5 and taken his time before unloading, like Faf did. 

And, while the Sam Curran promotion was understandable and logical, there was absolutely reason for Dhoni to send Kedar Jadhav ahead of him. In 14 matches in IPL 2019, Jadhav got his runs at a rate of 95.85 and, on top of that, he’d only hit 5 sixes in 15 IPL matches prior to him walking out to bat yesterday. Yesterday, he walked in with CSK needing 140 off 11 overs. Dhoni’s comments suggest that he’s either trying to make a fool of the common fan or that he’s completely lost it as a captain. 

Perhaps it’s time for acceptance - both from the end of Dhoni and his loyalists. With every passing day, there is more glaring evidence that the glory days of the past are dead and buried. The MS Dhoni of 2020 is not the Dhoni of 2011 and will never be. And so, instead of fooling ourselves, it’d be better to admit the same and move on, instead of vehemently denying it and pulling out absurd excuses to defend a man whose actions, with every passing day, are getting more perplexing and indefensible. 

Dhoni might still have it in him to prove all his doubters like myself wrong, but, until he actually does so, I would like to continue to believe that his run-out in the World Cup was inconsequential.