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2 Reasons Why MS Dhoni Should Be Indian Cricket Team’s Chief Selector – After the World Cup 2023 ends on November 19, the focus of the Indian team will shift to the T20 World Cup 2024. Next year’s T20 WC isn’t far away either – it will be played in June 2024 in the West Indies and the USA.
India already seem to have earmarked Hardik Pandya to lead the side in next year’s T20 World Cup: Rohit Sharma has not played a single T20I since last year’s semi-final exit in the T20 WC in Australia – he’s said to have been rested from all the T20Is this year – while Hardik Pandya has been leading India in Rohit’s absence.
It’s been 16 years since MS Dhoni propelled Team India to glory in the 2007 T20 World Cup in South Africa, defeating Pakistan in the final. That remains India’s only T20 WC triumph as they failed to clinch the trophy in the 7 attempts since then.
In an attempt to try to win the world title once again, India even had MS Dhoni as the team mentor in the 2021 T20 World Cup in the UAE, but the side failed to even reach the semis. In his defence, there is little Dhoni could have done after the squad had been finalized and the preparations weren’t up to the mark.
One way MS Dhoni can influence and potentially help India to succeed in next year’s T20 World Cup in West Indies is if he’s allowed to make decisions in the lead-up to the tournament: that could be possible if he’s made the selector for India’s T20I team.
This may sound unusual, but it’s not totally out of the box. England have had success with two different coaches as their red-ball and white-ball coaches; then why the BCCI can’t have a white-ball specific selector as well, whose sole focus would be to prepare outlines for India’s white-ball plans and pick players for limited-overs cricket? And who better than MS Dhoni?
Here’s why MS Dhoni should be appointed as India’s white-ball selector:
Nobody understands modern T20 cricket better than MS Dhoni
Despite being away from international cricket, MS Dhoni has led CSK to two IPL trophies in the last three seasons, and overall 5 IPL titles. He’s undoubtedly India’s most successful white-ball captain, and arguably the greatest white-ball skipper of all time.
No one understands the nuances of T20 cricket better than MS Dhoni, who works on strong intuition and assessment of the conditions and opposition. MS Dhoni’s nous as a captain has helped India and CSK win their trophies. His intelligence and understanding of the players have also given successful careers to many cricketers who perhaps may not have had that much success without Dhoni’s hand over them.
MS Dhoni backs the players to the hilt
Any player who has ever played under MS Dhoni at any level of cricket has often hailed his will to back the talent and potential of a player. If Dhoni sees something in a player, he will back that player to the full extent possible, and even go against the choices of the selectors and the media.
For example, Rohit Sharma perhaps wouldn’t have become so great a player if MS Dhoni didn’t back him when he was struggling in the first six years of his international career. The same can be said about Ravindra Jadeja, who didn’t have so much confidence of the selectors and the fans but Dhoni persisted with him.
Since MS Dhoni left India captain, there have been plenty of upheaval in the Indian teams under Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, with players getting dropped with just a few failures or their position being shuffled. An example of that is Manish Pandey, who didn’t get support from Virat Kohli when he became captain: despite his century in Australia in an ODI, Pandey didn’t get a consistent run at a fixed position under Kohli.
If MS Dhoni does become a selector, the players will have more security of their place in the side, and would know that they will be given multiple chances to prove themselves. This also would allow the players to play with freedom their natural game.
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