The League of Extraordinarily Stupid Gentlemen

I like MS Dhoni. I really do. But, of late, his captaincy is making me mad. I always held the belief that the man was an aggressive captain, whose defensive ploys (think 9-1 fields) were aggressive in their intent. After watching him set defensive fields at the first sign of trouble, I am extremely dissatisfied and saddened by the change in him. But he is not the only captain in world cricket to behave that badly. It is an epidemic and they have all caught it.

I do not know who the first captain was who spread the field for one batsman in an attempt to get him off-strike so he could target the new batsman but that fellow should have been taken outside and repeatedly flogged till every vestige of that thought was eliminated from his brain. In just the previous Test match, Masada had been at the receiving end of a similar strategy adopted by Graeme Smith. I had even blogged after that, thanking Smith for showing Masada what NOT to do. But rather than learn from that, Masada decided to simply continue with the tactic.

Heck, I'll even just toss the ball underarm if you'll let me attack the other batsman.  Please.  Pretty please.

I cannot tell you how angry I am at the defensive posture. Gah!

Sidharth Monga expands on this with the very-same example (India almost letting Sri Lanka off the hook) that I mentioned very recently. I know Dhoni does not read my blog, but surely he reads Cricinfo, right? I hope so. If he doesn't he should be made to read this article.

This is to take nothing away from a superb century under pressure and in pain, but Kallis couldn't have asked for anything better at that point of time than the easy singles down to long-on. It was quite similar to what India did to Thilan Samaraweera in the deciding Test of their Sri Lanka tour earlier this year. On the fourth day at the P Sara Oval, India had taken five second-innings wickets for 24 runs, reducing Sri Lanka to effectively 76 for 7, and Samaraweera was 4 when Lasith Malinga came out to join him. It took one boundary from him to open up the easy-single route to sweeper-cover, and another hit over mid-off to spread the field for good. The last three wickets then added 180 runs, and it took special innings from VVS Laxman and Tendulkar to level the series.

Not learning a lesson, India perhaps took it a step further here. Kallis was not even batting with the tail; he started off with Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, Ashwell Prince and Mark Boucher. Of the four, de Villiers, too, was shown remarkable respect when he was welcomed with a long-on in place already. Why not ask a batsman to clear mid-on on a pitch that is offering you turn and variable bounce? Sadly, as Smith and other modern captains have shown over the years, this is not a problem with India and Dhoni alone. The moment they see a lesser batsman, they choose to attack only one of the two men batting, and invariably they get only two balls an over where they are actually trying to take wickets.