Who is Kohli to criticise Dhoni?

One ODI (one day international) series defeat to Bangladesh has exposed the frailties in Team India, though what is worrying is not the form of players but the voices of dissent that have come out in the open.

It is hard to accept losses in sport, but to all of a sudden find faults with the leadership is going overboard. It’s not as if skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni took over the reins of the team a few weeks ago. He has been around for such a long time that he knows what it takes to maximise the performance of the players.

When India lost to England and tougher teams like Australia, especially in Tests overseas, the "Sack Dhoni" campaign reached a crescendo. This time too, it’s rather surprising that someone like current Test captain Virat Kohli has created a flutter by speaking about a lack of clarity in the team and the players being confused.

Kohli has played plenty of ODI cricket under Dhoni and knows the style of the senior pro. It is not as if overnight Dhoni has become a bad captain as this is not like a player losing form.

Before the start of the series in Bangladesh, there was a lot of bonhomie between team director Ravi Shastri and Kohli. First it was Shastri who spoke in a laudatory manner about Kohli and the Test captain replied as if the lines had been rehearsed!

Anyone who has followed cricket knows Shastri is an ambitious man and would be happiest if the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) did not hire a foreign coach.

After Duncan Fletcher’s contract ended, there has been no word on who are the candidates for the job. The time is now ripe for the lords in the BCCI and the cricket advisory committee, comprising Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman, to quickly act on finding a foreign coach for the Indian side.

Just to jog the readers’ memory, Shastri had said after the World Cup how the Indian support staff comprising Bharat Arun and company had done a good job in Australia.

Agreed, Arun fired up the Indian fast bowling attack but what the team needs now is a no-nonsense coach who can ensure no negative comments are made by people in the team. The worst is when a player as senior as Kohli starts questioning the current ODI captain.

There is a huge difference between the approach of Dhoni and Kohli in the way cricket is played and their leadership skills. Kohli is aggressive and that sometimes results in him getting hot under the collar, and provokes incidents that can be avoided.

Captaincy is as much about leading on the field as it is about man management beyond the boundary. Kohli is young and his aggro may suit his style of play but he has no business being critical of Dhoni, the captain.

Split captaincy in Indian cricket is a fairly new phenomenon and when two different captains have to be dealt with, the ideal situation would be to have a foreign coach.

His role will have as much to do with cricket as with being a diplomat in ensuring dressing room bickering does not come out in the open.

Whatever one may say about Duncan Fletcher being laid-back and not assertive enough, he went about his job in a quiet manner. At this point of time, it’s imperative a new coach plunges headlong into the job with Team India as he needs to understand the dynamics of the side.

It would be preposterous to state that there are "camps" within the Indian team, but if one day Suresh Raina and R Ashwin speak in favour of Dhoni and the next day someone else criticises the ODI captain. There is something seriously wrong.

The Indian team has done exceedingly well under Dhoni in ODIs and the record speaks for itself. To have led the side to the World Cup win in 2011 and piloting the team to the semi-finals four years later means he knows how to bring the best out of the boys. If anyone is going to question the commitment of Dhoni, the ODI player and captain, it is very sad. After all that he has done for Indian cricket, one loss to Bangladesh in a short series cannot decide his fate. Dhoni’s expiry date cannot be fixed by players who are critical of him. The selection committee is there for this job.