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#360view: Embarrassing defeat in Mumbai shows MS Dhoni's India need to revamp their game

#360view: Embarrassing defeat in Mumbai shows MS Dhoni's India need to revamp their game

India lost a close one-day series against South Africa on Sunday. Taking a five-match series to the decider and losing 3-2 against a team like the Proteas may not sound like a terrible result, but there was enough evidence to suggest that the Indian think tank should be very worried.

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Because the World T20 is in India in less than five months, the immediate cause of concern is the Twenty20 results. India lost the three-match series 2-0 with the final match abandoned in Kolkata without a ball being bowled.

The pressure on the home side is going to be immense and there will be a lot of expectations from the fans, especially as India won the last ICC tournament they hosted – the 2011 World Cup.

India are second in the ICC ODI rankings and fifth in T20s, but looking at the current team – in both the formats – it would be nothing short of a miracle if they were to win a major tournament.

Bowling remains the major worry, and that was exposed in a rather embarrassing manner when they were carted around the Wankhede Stadium in the final ODI yesterday for 438 runs – the third highest score in the history of the game.

Agreed this Proteas batting unit is something special. After all, four of the top-six highest scores in ODI history belong to them. When someone like AB de Villiers gets going, it is hard to bowl to him, or set field for his extraordinary shotmaking skills. And this was not just AB going nuts, but Quinton de Kock and Faf du Plessis joining him in the merry-making as well.

But this is where my fears are. India do not have a plan, nor do they have the tools to stop such a massacre. During the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand earlier this year, UAE captain Mohammed Tauqir had a very simple, yet definitive idea on how to ensure South Africa did not reach 400.

“Win the toss and bat first,” was the Emirati’s reply, tongue firmly in his cheek. Unfortunately, Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni does not seem to have any idea – not even a funny one – on how to stop the South African juggernaut. That is worrisome.

Dhoni and his men have seen enough of de Villiers in the last few years to figure out a few ways to stop the flow of runs. But they have shown neither ingenuity nor imagination.

Almost all of Dhoni’s strategies seem to revolve around Ravichandran Ashwin. And once the spinner got injured, the Indian bowling attack looked clueless and the captain hasn’t been able to provide any inspiration.

Even in the batting department, it remains baffling as to why a game of musical chair continues to be played with Ajinkya Rahane, who, at the moment, is the most dependable bat in Team India.

Just a day before the match in Mumbai, Dhoni spoke about how difficult it has become for batsmen to score runs at a faster clip in the slog overs because of the new fielding rule that allows five players to be posted on the boundary. And yet, South African batsmen hammered India for 144 runs in the last 10 overs on Sunday.

The way the South Africans batted and bowled, any team would have been defeated. But it was still an embarrassing result.

What would be even more disgraceful is if India fail to learn from this match and change their thinking. The team desperately needs some re-inventing, and it needs to be done now before it is too late.


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