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London, Aug 13 : Former England cricketer David Lloyd feels that India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni's tired wicketkeeping typifies the character of the Indian team which is either too tired from too much of cricket or unwilling to fight.
"For three years or more, everything that Mahendra Singh Dhoni touched turned to gold. These days, everything he tries to touch seems to end up on the floor. Bit harsh? Perhaps, but these are worrying times for the man who did the impossible by replacing Sachin Tendulkar as India's most talked about cricketer," Lloyd wrote in his column in The Independent.
Lloyd hoped that the India-England Test series, where the visitors are down 0-2, are worrying times.
"If the keeper is sloppy then there's a fair chance the rest of the fielding will be below par - and Dhoni has been sloppiness personified behind the stumps. True, he hasn't missed many edges, but then there have not been too many to miss. Even the most eagle-eyed observers though have lost count of the number of routine takes that MS has messed up.
"There have been occasions this summer - and, most recently, yesterday afternoon - when Dhoni has seemed to accept his team's fall from grace with not much more than a shrug of the shoulders. It is Dhoni's wicketkeeping though that seems to typify an outfit that is either tired from too much cricket or unwilling to fight tooth and nail to protect a title as unsexy - at least to a majority of Indian cricket fans - as that of the world's No.1 Test team," said Lloyd.
Lloyd said on the third day of the third cricket Test that the Indian team looked like men who knew that another game was already up and there was nothing they could do other than wait for the inevitable.
"As captain, it is up to MS to set the tone - something he has done, quite brilliantly, on numerous occasions since leading an inexperienced Indian side to unexpected triumph in the inaugural World Twenty20 of 2007. But so far this series, save for a couple of hours in Birmingham on Wednesday afternoon, Dhoni has been a huge disappointment," he said.
--IANS
"For three years or more, everything that Mahendra Singh Dhoni touched turned to gold. These days, everything he tries to touch seems to end up on the floor. Bit harsh? Perhaps, but these are worrying times for the man who did the impossible by replacing Sachin Tendulkar as India's most talked about cricketer," Lloyd wrote in his column in The Independent.
Lloyd hoped that the India-England Test series, where the visitors are down 0-2, are worrying times.
"If the keeper is sloppy then there's a fair chance the rest of the fielding will be below par - and Dhoni has been sloppiness personified behind the stumps. True, he hasn't missed many edges, but then there have not been too many to miss. Even the most eagle-eyed observers though have lost count of the number of routine takes that MS has messed up.
"There have been occasions this summer - and, most recently, yesterday afternoon - when Dhoni has seemed to accept his team's fall from grace with not much more than a shrug of the shoulders. It is Dhoni's wicketkeeping though that seems to typify an outfit that is either tired from too much cricket or unwilling to fight tooth and nail to protect a title as unsexy - at least to a majority of Indian cricket fans - as that of the world's No.1 Test team," said Lloyd.
Lloyd said on the third day of the third cricket Test that the Indian team looked like men who knew that another game was already up and there was nothing they could do other than wait for the inevitable.
"As captain, it is up to MS to set the tone - something he has done, quite brilliantly, on numerous occasions since leading an inexperienced Indian side to unexpected triumph in the inaugural World Twenty20 of 2007. But so far this series, save for a couple of hours in Birmingham on Wednesday afternoon, Dhoni has been a huge disappointment," he said.
--IANS
