Dhoni was in Greece in 2018 when he surrendered without trying to win the match during the ODI series against England. We saw in his book that former fielding coach R. Sreedhar said in his book that Ravi Shastri targeted Dhoni for playing like that and warned him, ‘No matter how big you are, if you play like that again, it will be the last time you play for India in my eyes.’
Another interesting conversation has been mentioned in the book “Coaching Beyond: My Days With The Indian Cricket Team” by R. Sridhar. That conversation took place during the 2014-15 Test series in Adelaide when Virat Kohli was the captain. We can also mention this incident as an example of Dhoni’s ‘negative’ mind set.
In the 2014–15 Australia Test series at Adelaide, Michael Clarke made an attempt to bowl the Indian team out after declaring early and scoring 364 to win. Virat Kohli has already scored a brilliant century in the first innings of this Test, his captaincy debut. In the 2nd innings, Michael Clarke presented a challenge. It is a challenge like ‘chase if you can, if you win you win and I win for me’. Captain Virat Kohli accepted the challenge and chased the target away. Murali Vijay, who has now retired, played a brilliant innings, coming close to a century but setting a good foundation for the chase despite his dismissal.
R. Sreedhar has posted the following in his book about the dismissal of the wicketkeeper in this innings:
“Virat Kohli was clear on how to approach India’s victory target the next day. Even if Australia declare on the 4th day, India can move towards the target of victory only if they score more than 4 runs per over. Australia captain Clarke declared the same and challenged.
Virat Kohli has made up his mind that he is going to chase down the target stubbornly and not just play for a draw,” he wrote.
But here’s a twist, what we usually think of is that Dhoni is a positive captain who encourages us to go for the target! That’s not it. Sridhar posted this about Kohli and Dhoni’s bus conversation:
Later Virat Kohli told me this. MS Dhoni was sitting next to Kohli. ‘Look Goalie, we all know you are that type of player, let’s hit the target and win. But as a captain you have to think about other players too. Will other players play as positively? Will they play positively enough to chase 360 runs? And that too on the last day of the game?’ So Virat, when you take a decision you have to weigh the overall strength of the team,” Dhoni advised Virat Kohli.
Virat Kohli also agreed that there was ‘merit’ in what Dhoni said. But Kohli Telat was clear that positivity is the only way forward. Virat Kohli, who responded to Dhoni’s warning, said, ‘We will know whether it is possible or not if we try, we have not chased 360 runs on the last day. So we can know if it is possible or not only by chasing it? Let’s try, let’s give it a try… how will we know our skills if we don’t try?’ Kohli replied,” R. Sreedhar posted.
Virat Kohli scored his 2nd century in the same Test match against a target of 364 runs. Murali Vijay was unfortunately dismissed for 99 runs. In the end, the Indian team lost by 48 runs, but it also confirmed that India’s attitude under the captaincy of Virat Kohli will be like this from now on.
Also, Kohli and Ravi Shastri were clear that if we play for a draw, we will lose. It doesn’t matter if you chase the target heroically and lose. Kohli’s style is one that instills a confidence in the players and teaches a lesson to great strong captains like Michael Clarke. We can infer from this post by R. Sreedhar that Dhoni’s attitude has not improved.
