Before talking about
Dhoni's bizarre tactics against England and in the IPL, lets see some stats in T20Is:
| Player | Sixes | Innings | 6's per innings |
| Yuvraj | 29 | 13 | 2.23 |
| Yusuf | 9 | 7 | 1.29 |
| Sehwag | 10 | 11 | 0.91 |
| Raina | 6 | 7 | 0.86 |
| Rohit | 8 | 10 | 0.80 |
| Gambhir | 8 | 15 | 0.53 |
| Dhoni | 5 | 16 | 0.31 |
These are the stats of the seven Indian batsmen in their international T20 career and as you can see it is sorted by the no of sixers hit in an innings. And look who is at the bottom of the list. Our Captain Cool.
When Dhoni promoted himself up in the order during the last edition of T20 WC, it made sense. That time we didnt had Sachin, Sourav, Rahul and Laxman in the team (whether they were good for T20 or not is not the point here, we lacked experience is what I am trying to say). With the exception of Veeru and Yuvi, rest of the batting was unknown. We had an unreliable Gambhir, untested Rohit and Yusuf played only in the final. For that matter Dinesh Karthik was preferred as a middle order batsman. Dhoni's tactics of not playing big shots was also perfectly justified at that time, as we needed some one to play thru the 20 overs.
But look at the team now after having seen how these fellows played in the IPL in South Africa. Under this scenario we cannot understand why Dhoni would bat above Yuvi or Yusuf and why he would send some one like Jadeja ahead of Yuvi. It also does not make any sense for Dhoni to bat above 5 or 6.
I think he is getting insecured with the two "seniors" Yuvi and Veeru after getting rid of practically all other seniors from the team. We are seeing a new Ganguly in the making. While Ganguly turned around the Indian team's fortunes, his playing politics with the players could not be forgotten or forgiven. Promoting a middle order batsman Veeru to open the batting to check Sachin is something I can never forget. Today Dhoni is doing the same thing with another middle order batter Rohit to put a check to Veeru.
It is quite visible that he prefers certain players over others. For example, Dhoni favours Ishant over RP. I feel RP is better for T20 than Ishant and Ishant is better than RP for tests. Same way with he prefers Raina over Yusuf.
Here are some facts that Dhoni can ponder:
- Sachin is a better batsman, while Saurav is a better captain.
- Dhoni is a better captain, while Yuvraj is one of the best limited overs player for India.
- Dhoni should take a leaf out of Steve Waugh. Both these are not great players by any means, but both great fighters.
