Will the real Mahendra Singh Dhoni please stand up?
Not long ago the Indian captain was a bowler's nightmare. It would take him just a few overs to change the course of a match, be it in Tests or ODIs. However, it now seems as if his capabilities have evaporated.
Once rated among the world's most dangerous batsmen, Dhoni has struggled to find boundaries consistently in the ongoing ICC World Twenty20.
Is it that India's captain cool is feeling the pressure of the top job?
After the defeat to England on Sunday, he reflected on his own batting form in the tournament (81 runs in 4 matches) and admitted losing some of his batting prowess.
"I am not consistently clearing the park; that is for sure! I am here to admit that and I am working hard on it. I feel cricket is not only about hitting sixes, because, if you see, there are quite a few players in our team who have to fill in different roles in T20 or the one-day format.
"Gautam Gambhir is doing the job at the top of the order, and I am supposed to do it in the late middle-order. That was the plan, but it never worked throughout the tournament," he said.
He also hinted of slight desperation at not being able to get back to his six-hitting mode, which made him a darling of the masses in his early years as an India player.
"I would like to get back to hitting sixes, but I don't think my cricket stops at hitting sixes. There is plenty more to come," he said.
The right-hander, who boasts of an astonishing strike rate of 91 for 4,385 runs in 135 ODIs at 49.26, also revealed that there is a big change in his style of batting.
"I have adapted my game, especially for the one-dayers, where I am batting down the order more. After the first six months that I batted at number three, I am batting more at number six or seven or number five, depending on the situation. So, automatically, if you play more at that number, my game is suited for that condition and that kind of pace. There has been significant change in my batting."
What is baffling is that Dhoni agrees that he now takes time to get his eye in before he can start hitting and that is why he is struggling in Twenty20 cricket.
"Even in Twenty20 format when I made my debut I was not the batsman who would go in and start hitting from the first ball; I used to take five or ten deliveries. That is not really in possible in the Twenty20 format, but, definitely, it is an area where I can work for a short while and can be back," he said.
For India's skipper life, it seems, has come a full circle. The team was in a similar situation after being knocked out in the group stages of the 2007 50-overs World Cup, which then led to several seniors getting the boot. But Dhoni believes his young team can overcome this latest setback and get better with the experience.
"Well, that's what cricket is all about. It does not test your character when you are doing well and it tests you when you are not doing well as an individual and as a team. So these are testing time for us; but if you see, it's not the end of the road for us. We are going to the West Indies and we can prove a point over there," he added.
"This has been a good learning experience for the young guys who might go on and play for the next 10 or 12 years provided they don't get injured frequently. When we lost the 2007 World Cup, the 50-over version, it was the worst part in my career.
"This loss is certainly disappointing, but it won't come anywhere near the loss we had in the 50-over version. The next few days will be tough because you have to be here and see what's happening here without being a part of it. We have another game coming up in the 16th, and we have to do well there to prove a point. Hopefully, we'll recover well and come out of it."
