MS Dhoni is one of the most successful captain in cricket history. As a captain, MS Dhoni has achieved everything that was expected off him. From lifting the inaugural T20 World Cup 2007 trophy to taking India to glory in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, Dhoni is, statistically, India’s most successful captain.
Dhoni has a massive fan following across the world, but he has also received a lot of criticism off late. Although, Dhoni’s fan would easily outnumber his critics, there is a still a fair chunk of fans in India who don’t like MS Dhoni. The Cricket Lounge’s Manish Yadav lists 4 reasons why MS Dhoni is not liked by some fans in India.
1) Poor record in overseas Test matches
MS Dhoni became India’s full-time Test captain in 2008, when he took over the captaincy from Anil Kumble. At that time, many thought that a young leader will instill an aggressive mindset in the unit and India will become a better Test team. Dhoni started off really well by winning series against Australia, New Zealand and others. Dhoni also took India to number 1 position in Test cricket. However, Dhoni’s failure to win Test matches outside the sub-continent lead to a lot of anger among the fans. Indian cricket team, under the leadership of MS Dhoni, lost 8 Test matches on the trot. And this is the reason why Dhoni announced his retirement from Test cricket, midway through the Test series in Australia, thus handing over the reigns to Virat Kohli
2) Exclusion of senior players
After winning the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, MS Dhoni transformed the Indian cricket team by including many new players and axing senior players. The likes of Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh were dropped from the team and none of these players were included in the squad for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015.
3) Biased towards Chennai Super Kings (CSK) players
Many fans in India believe that MS Dhoni has shown biased towards his CSK teammates and he has given more chances to the likes of Ravindra Jadeja, Suresh Raina, Ravichandran Ashwin and Murali Vijay. It is true that MS Dhoni, as the captain of Indian cricket team, has a fair amount of say in the selection process, and this is why there has been criticism over the fact that the Indian captain has given more opportunities to players from the CSK squad, ahead of many other deserving cricketers.
4) Keeping mum on the IPL scandal
MS Dhoni’s silence on spot-fixing and betting scandal in Indian Premier League (IPL) intrigued many to question is loyalty to the game. Even when his IPL franchise CSK was banned, Dhoni didn’t say a word and kept mum on the matter. As the leader of the side, many believe that it was Dhoni’s responsibility to come out and reassure the fans about the integrity of Indian cricket.
NOTE: Views expressed in this article are of the writer and The Cricket Lounge is just a platform for writers to express their views.
