'Dhoni is playing for his averages'

India's wicketkeeping legend Farokh Engineer on Tuesday expressed concerns over Mahendra Singh Dhoni's waning batting skills and called on him to get back to his attacking past to rediscover his form.

"I don't know who has been talking to him to get defensive when he is batting. Whenever I talk to Dhoni I always tell him and encourage him to keep up his attacking batting. I want him to keep playing in the same way that has made him MS Dhoni. I also don't know whether he is fully fit," Engineer told rediff.com in Nottingham, on Tuesday.

Engineer's concerns were not shocking considering Dhoni's appalling performance with the bat in the ICC World Twenty20 tournament.

Dhoni managed just 86 runs in five matches at 21.50 and the Indian team lost all their three matches in the Super Eights to be knocked out of the tournament.

"I think he is afraid of giving his wicket away. He is playing more for his averages and he should forget that. He should play his own natural game and we will see a flamboyant Dhoni again," the former India wicketkeerp quipped.

But Engineer believes that captaincy is not bothering Dhoni and he is capable of bouncing back in the near future.

"I don't think the pressure is getting to him because Dhoni has captained the side well. All of a sudden you cannot become a bad captain overnight. Dhoni has been a lucky captain and a good captain, an attacking captain. I am all praise for his captaincy. Yeah, ok things didn't go our way and it was a setback but he is quite capable of bouncing back and leading India to glory again," the 71-year-old said.

Engineer also thinks Dhoni's wicketkeeping skills have suffered during this lean period, which has one of the darkest periods of his career so far.

"In this tournament he has not kept wickets properly, he has not captained properly and he has not batted properly. He has just not produced the goods. He is holding his hand up and admitting that he was out of form, the players were out of form but these players are international players and they get enough money. So they must keep that in mind and practice hard and look to come back in form."

He simply refused to believe that a talented batting line-up like India threw in the towel so easily against South Africa, when they only had to chase a mere 131 for a consolation victory.

"They just threw their wickets away against South Africa. Today, I thought they handed the match to South Africa on a platter because we had a great opening partnership between Gautam Gambhir and Rohit Sharma.

"Our middle batting was poor and we gave our wickets away cheaply. I cannot believe Dhoni's run out because there was no run in it and he charged down the wicket even though the ball was close to the wicketkeeper," Engineer said.