Dhoni: Can the machine man turn the clock back in World Cup year?

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Bengaluru, January 19: The love MS Dhoni has for machines, and he owns a nice line of them, is well-chronicled. Time devoted to tending to them, might have added a dispassionate edge to his mind. For the last year or so, Dhoni has been standing in the face of constant scrutiny, enough to drive any player to desperation.

But not Dhoni. Like a sports car racing in the furiously temperament-testing Le Mans, Dhoni waited for his chance to overtake criticisms. Three back-to-back fifties, two of them unbeaten, in the bilateral series against Australia earned him player of the series award and that might have eased a lot of worries in the Indian camp ahead of the ICC World Cup 2019 in England. So has he taken a time capsule ride and transformed into the dreaded force of old? Let's find out.

By no means, it was a blockbuster effort Down Under. Dhoni took the hard yard. The Jharkhand man has realised that cruising through the race and then finishing it all by himself is no longer an option for him. No longer he is in an F1 race, leading from the pole position. Here're two cases. At Adelaide, he might have hit that six off Jason Behrendorff in the final over over long on to seal the win but before that Dinesh Karthik took a lot of burden off Dhoni with his chutzpah. At Melbourne, Dhoni came at No 4 and batted around Kedar Jadhav (61 off 57 balls) to take India home.

The Indian think tank too seemed to have acknowledged the evolution of Dhoni. He is no longer considered the primary option for No 6, a slot from where the former skipper turned a number of matches in India's way. Karthik is the preferred man now in that position. It is an acknowledgment of the fact that Dhoni needs more time at crease to get into his rhythm so that he is ready for the final flourish. In that context, came the open expression of interest by Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma to see Dhoni batting at No 5 or 4.

It has a connection to Dhoni's ways in front of the stumps too. Dhoni's batting style is unique. A man hailed for his unorthodox methods when he was the skipper, Dhoni is pretty one-dimensional as a batsman. Seldom will you see Dhoni playing a reverse sweep or a scoop behind the wicketkeeper or even a conventional sweep against spinners. This often gives you the impression that Dhoni struggles to accelerate against spinners and against pace bowlers too he does not play many fancy shots, except for the helicopter, but nudges them through gaps for singles and twos. If it comes off Dhoni can be very effective and if he fails to find gaps then his strike-rate will dwindle and can frustrate the other batsmen leaving him with lesser number of balls to face.

It can hold up the team too. A good example is the one-dayer against the West Indies in 2017 in Antigua. Dhoni walked in at 47 for three, made 54 off 114 balls but India lost the match by 11 runs. Similarly, Dhoni's 67-ball 36 chasing 223 nearly deprived India of the Asia Cup title against Bangladesh last year but the late order batsmen saved the team in a last-ball finish. In simpler terms, Dhoni's batting habits seem to be 'untweakable', and the only solution at the moment is to give him more match-time at No 4 or 5 so that he can also apply breaks on a slide like he did at Sydney while walking in at 4 for three.

But this style of batting will hold good if India are chasing a middling target in the vicinity of 250-260, so that Dhoni can bat around other batsmen. But it can easily backfire if India have to chase something close to 310-320. It is certain that Dhoni will appear in the World Cup and the Old Blighty has seen 36 totals over 300 in the last four years.

It seems that Dhoni has some more tests at hand in the coming months. Will he ace it? Will Dhoni go out draped in glory as he should go? The machine-man Dhoni might be telling in his mind: "I am coming for you, Storm."