Team India lost its first ever bilateral ODI series to Bangladesh. It is a result which reflects how much the fledgling cricketing nation has come up in the game. The greenhorn lively left-arm pace bowler, Mustafizur, titled the scales, giving the home side no end of pleasure after the team’s defeat in the World Cup quarterfinal to India had become controversial due to claims of biased umpiring.
In the immediate wake of another cash-rich IPL season in hot weather at home, India’s cricketers seemed very jaded. The cricket board should share the blame for not giving the players a clear month’s break after the IPL. It is an afterthought that the tour to Zimbabwe has been put off. Cricketers are not performing fleas in a circus round the year.
Team India was not led very well by Dhoni, who is beginning to feel the stress of assuming the captaincy will always be his, regardless of team performance. After N. Srinivasan was dislodged as BCCI president by a Supreme Court diktat, the national captaincy cannot be considered to have been leased out to Dhoni of Chennai Super Kings anymore.
Dhoni’s India was outplayed, whether bowling first and losing its line and length, as in the first ODI, or batting first and losing its way after a decent start in the second. Two losses may not wreck Dhoni’s overall limited-overs record, but it does appear his sell-by date as skipper is well past. Kohli must be put in charge straightaway to plan India’s 2019 World Cup campaign as well as its Champions Trophy defence in 2017.
