A special moment for India’s captain

Ranchi becomes the latest One-Day International venue and will also have the rare privilege of hosting its son of the soil Mahendra Singh Dhoni as he captains the Indian team there.

It will be a huge moment for all of Ranchi when “Mahi”, as he is popularly known there, walks out to toss the coin for Alistair Cook to guess which way its going to fall.

One of the biggest plusses of the electronic media is the spread of the game all over India and with commentary in the local language, the game has gone into the furthest corners of the villages and that has enabled players of extraordinary ability like Dhoni to emerge.

That Dhoni is leading India, and successfully too, just goes to show that the old prejudices of only players from metros being able to lead sides has been banished forever. Today, most of the players in the Indian team come from non-metros and, while it tells a thing or two about how the game has been allowed to slip in the metros, it also tells us that the BCCI is sparing no efforts to see that the search for talent is cast all over India.

India will go in with loads of confidence after their crushing win at Kochi and the players in particular will want to make it a memorable day for the skipper on his home ground. They lost the first game by not too much and have come back well in the second and that should give them the belief that the wheel is turning in their favour.

Dhoni as always was the leader of the pack in this form of the game and he had able support from Jadeja, who played a blinder of an innings making a great case for a promotion up the order especially since the top order is struggling to get going.

The opening problems still persist and with Kohli not anywhere near his fluent self, there is pressure on the lower order. It is here that Raina comes in for he soaks the pressure well and combines with his skipper to first steady the rocking boat and then steer it to calmer waters.

With Bhuvaneshwar Kumar coming on well as a new ball bowler and Shami Ahmad also continuing to impress, India does seem to have that aspect covered. Ishant, sadly, does not seem to be learning and even while accepting that the limited overs format is tough on the bowlers, he is far more expensive and India will have to think long and hard how long they can afford that. Ashwin and Jadeja like it when the ball turns a bit and they strangled the English batsmen, who depend so much on Cook’s stabilising influence at the top.

It should be a good game and the team that wins will definitely get the psychological advantage going into the remaining matches.

— Professional Management Group