Dhoni for Captain?

[Richard]

On the topic itself, Dhoni as captain has been good so far for mine. How do you people rate him as captain now?

As far as this is concerned, unfortunately I've not seen as much of him in the ODIs as I'd have liked - Tests > ODIs, especially when SA are involved. And I've always had to be choosing between the two.

Off-field, he's impressed me greatly (as he has most it seems). But as far as on-field is concerned, I just wish I'd seen more.

I'm still glad he wasn't appointed Test captain, not because I doubt his captaincy skills but because I doubt his playing ones where Tests are concerned.

 

[jeevan]

I doubt anyone was too bothered about the actual result of the game TBH - sure, it was against Pakistan, but the emphasis was clearly on trying-out players, and I for one am certainly glad I finally saw Rohit Sharma do something of note.

I'm glad Pravin Kumar & Sreesanth got an outing too,not just Rohit Sharma.

Playing Harbhajan and/or Zaheer for Sehwag or/and even Kartik for eg wouldnt have changed the trying out objective one bit.

 

[Richard]

Zaheer, certainly, needs a rest - am more than happy he didn't play. Would probably have preferred Harbhajan to Kartik, but there's still a chance Kartik might become a ODI-standard player, he needs as many gos as India can give him IMO. Harbhajan, on the other hand, is a known quantity. Though why on Earth Piyush Chawla went to England ahead of him baffles me.

 

[Jono]

Dhoni did nothing wrong yesterday in terms of selection really.

The experience Kumar and Sharma got was possibly more valuable to the Indian team then beating Pakistan 4-1, even though that would have been better going into the test series. And in saying that, Kumar and Sharma performed better than the likes of Sehwag or Uthappa.

Speaking of young Robin Uthappa, I don't see why they needed to send him up the order. Okay he started out as an opener, but he has found his niche as a late order player, and a VERY good one at that. Sharma or Yuvraj should have come in at 4. Even Sehwag or Dhoni ahead of Uthappa.

 

[Richard]

Would be happiest if Gambhir was ditched and Uthappa opened TBH.

Really, how good has he been at that lower-order, late-innings role? He's played that one brilliant knock in the Sixth ODI over here and smashed a valiant 44 in a long-lost cause in the Sixth ODI against Australia.

Nowhere near enough, IMO, to justify starting to try and turn him from an opener to a lower-middle-order player. Much happier with him opening - with Tendulkar if Tendulkar must, with Ganguly if he could bear to drop to four.