From time to time MS Dhoni lets it out - that he's still learning the ropes as captain. Picking Thushara ahead of his far more illustrious Sri Lankan compatriot Muralitharan in the IPL opener must be one of the poorest judgement calls he has made. Seeing the way spinners have performed so far in the tournament (and also in the T20 World Cup played in South Africa earlier), Tendulkar's Mumbai team have Dhoni to thank most of all for their winning start. From the way they struggled for runs (except in that 18th over from Flintoff which went for 22 runs), it's clear Murali's omission was a decisive factor. The fig leaf for Dhoni is that it was the first match and nobody was quite sure what to expect - Newlands has generally been seam friendly, especially in cold and wet conditions under lights. Another consideration may have been Thushara's all-round ability, because he had played a few one-day cameos against the Indians during their tour to Sri Lanka earlier this year. But if that indeed was the case, it was inexplicable how Joginder Sharma could've been sent to bat before Thushara. Chennai had an outside chance to pull it off at that stage with Dhoni still at the crease, but with Joginder's bat swishing through thin air ball after ball the equation quickly went out of hand. Obviously Dhoni still hasn't got over Joginder's last over in the T20 World Cup final, but we've yet to see him do anything of note since then. Finally, the selection of Jacob Oram over Albie Morkel defied logic. Oram was unfit for most of India's tour to New Zealand, and he's obviously not up to it yet. The news that Morkel's kit did not arrive at the venue in time seems a weird reason to leave him out. Couldn't he have borrowed a kit? In any case, if Morkel had been unavailable for whatever reason, I would've gone with Makhaya Ntini, another South African who would've revelled in those conditions. Chennai had enough batting resources to do without the all-rounders Oram and Thushara. To Dhoni's credit, though, he's usually quick to act on his mistakes. So, he picked Murali and Morkel for the next game, and also chose to bat first, which seems like an advantage in these conditions. Poor Bangalore did not get the benefit that Mumbai got, and suffered a huge defeat.