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Era of aggressive Test fields over - Dhoni

Satyanash89

Banned
"If you rotate [the strike] four times, you get four runs and [on] those four runs, you can get them out as many times."

This makes no sense whatsoever
 

smash84

The Tiger King
haha......love this reply from Dhoni though

"When asked whether surfaces like those in Delhi were right for Test cricket, Dhoni's reply was sardonic and also contained his response to past criticism of his captaincy. "Well, you'll have to answer what is 'right' and what is 'wrong' because your opinion really counts ... When four fast bowlers play, it becomes strategy, when three spinners or four spinners play, it becomes a bad wicket.""
 

vic_orthdox

Global Moderator
Would love to see the Indian batsmen playing against their own spinners with Dhoni's captaincy, and see if he still manages the field in a similar way, or if it's just because of other nations' lack of experience against spin that he preys upon.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
haha......love this reply from Dhoni though

"When asked whether surfaces like those in Delhi were right for Test cricket, Dhoni's reply was sardonic and also contained his response to past criticism of his captaincy. "Well, you'll have to answer what is 'right' and what is 'wrong' because your opinion really counts ... When four fast bowlers play, it becomes strategy, when three spinners or four spinners play, it becomes a bad wicket.""
Yeah great quote.
 

Arjun

Cricketer Of The Year
Would love to see the Indian batsmen playing against their own spinners with Dhoni's captaincy, and see if he still manages the field in a similar way, or if it's just because of other nations' lack of experience against spin that he preys upon.
Let's just imagine, his current Indian team facing an Indian team with Murali Kartik and Amit Mishra as its lead spinners. On this track.
 

Arachnodouche

International Captain
The only concession I'll make to that article is when he says that batting styles have changed drastically over the years and you have to take that into account while setting fields to avoid hemorrhaging runs. It is absolutely no excuse for the prematureness with which he presses those strategies into action 90% of the time.
 

honestbharani

Whatever it takes!!!
"If you rotate [the strike] four times, you get four runs and [on] those four runs, you can get them out as many times."

This makes no sense whatsoever
I think what he means is that if a batsman takes 4 balls to score 4 runs, you get 4 chances to get him out before the scoreboard moves up by 4. But if he hits a boundary, you only get that 1 ball to get him out. It is not great logic, but at least it is easy to see where he comes from.
 

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
It isn't always true, but on the whole, forcing people to score runs by hitting boundries is surely more risky than giving up singles...
 

Uppercut

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Yeah I think he's right. Well, he sometimes overdoes it. But he definitely has a better handle on it than most commentators.
 

Uppercut

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Much better reasoning than you get from commentators too. Seems reasonable to me that it usually takes more risk to score four singles than it does to score a boundary, and you can see there's some thought going into what field each batsman least wants to see. I just find it more convincing than the assertion that he should let a batsman get four for his favourite shot because "send a message".
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
Didn't this all begin, or at least get some real momentum, during the 2005 Ashes when Vaughan put sweepers to piss Hayden and some other batsman off when they hit their favourite shot and got a single?

Now obviously Dhoni is playing in India not England so he has more spread fields, and so he has taken it to another level (along with many other captains), but the basic premise of 4 singles is better than a boundary started with Vaughan if I remember correctly.
 

Uppercut

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Didn't this all begin, or at least get some real momentum, during the 2005 Ashes when Vaughan put sweepers to piss Hayden and some other batsman off when they hit their favourite shot and got a single?

Now obviously Dhoni is playing in India not England so he has more spread fields, and so he has taken it to another level (along with many other captains), but the basic premise of 4 singles is better than a boundary started with Vaughan if I remember correctly.
He got a lot of abuse for it too. The hindsight story over here is that Vaughan's innovative captaincy was huge positive for England, so it's weird that when you see the games now during rain breaks, the commentators are all over him for putting the men back too soon.

I think part of it is just doing something different, forcing batsmen to compile runs in ways they aren't used to. It could be that the next generation of batsmen can run hard between the wickets but struggle to pick the gaps against a more attacking field.

It's also interesting that Dhoni was one of the first to make big changes to his game so that he could keep scoring quickly against ultra-defensive fields in ODIs. He's really pushing the boundary-riders strategy but at the same time adapting his own batting to better deal with it. He's one batsman I think captains should set much more aggressive fields to early on, especially in ODIs.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
I remember UC that you were a big Dhoni fan early on as captain - say 2008-2010. Do you still have a strong opinion?

I probably went too extreme both ways. I thought he was brilliant and the best thing since sliced break and then after the third test in South Africa I threw my toys out of the pram with his defensive field and gifting Kallis and Boucher runs in the 3rd innings and hated his captaincy.
 

Pothas

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
He was really really bad in England although his team made it hard for him to look anything else.
 

Uppercut

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I remember UC that you were a big Dhoni fan early on as captain - say 2008-2010. Do you still have a strong opinion?
Yeah I'm definitely still a fan. I think he's lost a bit of enthusiasm for the job since then. He used to try a lot of unorthodox things, maybe just to keep everyone interested. I think his psychological effect was more obvious back then too. Every time Kumble got injured and Dhoni took over, the entire team's performance would immediately lift. Huge improvements in the T20, ODI and Test sides all coincided exactly with Dhoni taking over.

I'm not sure he's as effective as he was then, but he's still good. I didn't really rate the Indian team for a lot of that time so I tend to think he's less at fault for the team's failures than he is responsible for their successes. Maybe he could have held it together better in England or Australia, but I don't think they had it in them to actually avoid defeat, and I can't imagine there's an India fan that would rather they only lost those series 2-0 and never made it to test number 1 and win a World Cup.

I was also an early critic of his keeping, especially to spin. That seems to really have taken off since.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
Yeah I'm definitely still a fan. I think he's lost a bit of enthusiasm for the job since then. He used to try a lot of unorthodox things, maybe just to keep everyone interested. I think his psychological effect was more obvious back then too. Every time Kumble got injured and Dhoni took over, the entire team's performance would immediately lift. Huge improvements in the T20, ODI and Test sides all coincided exactly with Dhoni taking over.

I'm not sure he's as effective as he was then, but he's still good. I didn't really rate the Indian team for a lot of that time so I tend to think he's less at fault for the team's failures than he is responsible for their successes. Maybe he could have held it together better in England or Australia, but I don't think they had it in them to actually avoid defeat, and I can't imagine there's an India fan that would rather they only lost those series 2-0 and never made it to test number 1 and win a World Cup.
Yeah nice thoughts. Good stuff. I think you are interesting to ask because you are able to answer with complete objectivity.

My friends have had a go at me a lot for being emotional when I rage on Dhoni. Find it hard to play the devil's advocate.
 

vic_orthdox

Global Moderator
Much better reasoning than you get from commentators too. Seems reasonable to me that it usually takes more risk to score four singles than it does to score a boundary, and you can see there's some thought going into what field each batsman least wants to see. I just find it more convincing than the assertion that he should let a batsman get four for his favourite shot because "send a message".
Especially in the modern game, where everyone practices hitting boundaries more. The ball machine generation.
 

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