Among the many post-retirement options that will undoubtedly be open for MS Dhoni, a new one he might want to consider is that of a professional poker player, like Shane Warne. We know how poker-faced he can be whether he’s winning the World Cup or getting white-washed. But it’s the chase in a one-day game when he really comes into his own as a poker wiz.
He has now been involved in two heart-stopping run chases in the current tri-series Down Under, and is yet to be beaten. He first made short work of the 13 runs required in the last over against Australia, getting them with two balls to spare. Then he almost smacked the boundary that was needed off the last ball in the Lanka match, that too off a Malinga yorker outside off-stump which most people would barely have reached, let alone hit with any force. It’s just the size of the ground in Adelaide that allowed a tumbling fielder to keep him down to a three and a tie.
These heroics prompted a statistician to look up what Dhoni has been up to in his ODI career with regard to successful run chases, and it’s a telling statistic that he came up with. He averages a Bradmanesque 100 plus in matches that India has won batting second, remaining not out in 60% of these despite a strike rate of 90 (that is, almost a run a ball).
An unflappable temperament is obviously what a good poker player and a great ODI finisher have in common. But there is strategy involved, too, and Dhoni’s grasp over a one-day game is clearly on much firmer ground than his Test batting and captaincy. To understand what Dhoni is doing right as a finisher we have to look at the dynamics of the limited overs format.
Logically, it would seem that it is better to chase in an ODI game, unless there is a likelihood of the pitch deteriorating or slowing down. You would think that knowing the target would help in pacing out the innings, instead of going for too much and ending up with too little as it sometimes happens when batting first. In reality, however, it’s the team batting second that more often than not makes a hash of the chase, buckling under the pressure of a mounting required run rate and getting out to rash shots played to good balls.
Patience and ice in his veins are Dhoni’s virtues. He knows that the bowler will be sweating just as much as him the closer they get to the finish line, and is just as likely as the batsman to lose his nerve and bowl a loose ball. And that’s when he pounces. In the formulation of Ian Chappell, he is like the lioness that waits and waits for the most opportune moment to charge at her prey.
There are other factors involved during the run chase that work in Dhoni’s favour, and his reading of the one-day game is so good that he takes advantage of all of them.
For one, the rival captain tends to spread the field out to protect the boundaries as the innings progresses. This opens up gaps in the field, and if the batsman doesn’t push the ball too hard through these gaps, there’s enough time to hare back for a second run before the fielder comes off the boundary to collect, especially in these large Aussie grounds. The past master at this game of chip and double back was the Aussie one-day specialist Michael Bevan who, like Dhoni, used to bat at number six or seven. And the best thing about it is that it is virtually risk-free.
Then there is the full-length delivery or attempted yorker, whose frequency increases in the last stretch of a 50-over game. Dhoni backs himself to thump a few of these into the stands on the strength of his wrists and forearms. That’s how he finished the World Cup final, and he did the same to the first ball he faced in the final over of the match we won against the Aussies the other day.
Having said all that, however, one can overdo this ice-cool stuff. In the game against the Lankans, that other poker player, Mahela Jayawardene, recently reinstated as captain, almost pulled the wool over Dhoni’s eyes by shuffling the bowlers right at the end so that Malinga would get to bowl the 48th and 50th overs. This made it imperative to go after Kulasekara who bowled the 47th over, which would normally have been Malinga’s because he bowled the 45th over. When Jayawardene held Malinga back, it should have been the signal for Dhoni to treat it like a last over, because you will rarely get runs in double figures in a Malinga over at the end. Instead, Dhoni played two singles and a dot ball;
Kulasekara’s over yielded only five runs. Perhaps the heroics at the end could have been avoided, after all.
It’s good to hold your cards close to the chest right till the end of a poker game, but sometimes you have to call your opponent’s bluff. Let’s hope Dhoni remembers this lesson if he finds himself playing the role of finisher again in Sunday’s game against the Aussies.
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