Is Dhoni the new Ricky Ponting?

Well yesterday, the Indian captain and to be more precise at present, the Chennai Superkings captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni is all set to take the stage in the finals of the Indian Premier League for the third time and second time in succession. Likewise, he is the only captain and his team is the only team (obviously) to have made it to the semi finals (qualifiers this time around) of an IPL. This was something that only Dhoni can boast of and nobody else. Dhoni has all reasons and his team all the odds to make it two in a row.

With just four editions of the Indian Premier League gone and with ten teams at present to compete, there are teams in the waiting as well to gain atleast one such title. Dhoni on one side should be lucky to have beaten the Royal Challengers Bangalore at the right time when just a couple of days ago the same RCB destroyed the Chennai Superkings by 8 wickets. The venue hardly matters when the country is foreign to all non Indian players and local to players from India who have played in almost every venue that hosted matches in the IPL.

It was just more than a month ago that India-under the captaincy of the same Dhoni won the world cup at Wankhade stadium that set so many records and just 8 months ago that lifted the champions league trophy where they met the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the semi-finals like yesterday. Notable feathers in Dhoni's cap would be the inaugural edition of the world T20 at South Africa, runners-up in the inaugural edition of the Indian Premier League, winners in the 2010 IPL and finalists of the current edition of the IPL (which would see them may be as runners-up or winners).

I can just correlate this feat of Dhoni's to the former Aussie captain-Ricky Ponting who has has many tournament wins against his name when he captained the Australian team since the retirement of Steve Waugh in 2002. Notable achievements of Ponting include the two major world cup titles in 2003 and 2007, two ICC champions trophies in 2006 and 2009, beating India (in India) 2-1 in the Border-Gavaskar trophy 2004, 5-0 whitewash of England in Ashes 2007 and finally winning 21 one dayers at a stretch and 16 consecutive test matches. This can rarely be paralleled but one can see a glimpse of the same in Dhoni.

Are Warne's words justified?

Well the latest from the world of cricket is that the Australian retired spin wizard - Shane Warne has not only complimented the England team that a couple of days back lifted their maiden international trophy when they won the third edition of the world T20 in the Caribbean, but in addition also gave them an undeserving applause by saying that England are not scared of playing Australia. The point is, who on earth is scared of playing any team when the least happens is that they may lose the game or the series or whatever but still go back alive saying "better luck next time"?

Anyways with that being a different issue here, the point here is whether Shane Warne's words are completely justified? Shane Warne is believed to have made the statement after England's victory over Australia in the finals of the T20 world cup and also taking into consideration the 2-1 victory over Australia in the Ashes last year. Is that completely enough to justify Shane Warne's words? Likewise, another retired Australian fast bowler Glenn McGrath had predicted a 5-0 whitewash for Australia in the last Ashes played in England. But, forget about whitewashing, Austraia couldn't even win or defend the title they had won two years ago.

Australia generously gifted England the series, first when they drew the first Ashes test which they should have won after having a major lead in the first innings and then by losing two out of the 3 matches that were played after Australia won the second. However, coming back to Shane Warne's words, if England's world cup victory is given a close look at, no doubt, England did deserve to win the title, but winning a test series against Australia and that too on its home ground needs some special consideration. With the shortest format of the game still being a fluke, the results can go either way.

I don't have the patience to go back to cricinfo and search for the last time when England held the Ashes in Australia. I remember a series of 4-1 loss in the Ashes by England when Steve Waugh was the captain, with the latest one being in 2002-03 played in Australia. Australia have always been a predictable team for the right reasons with most of the time being victorious while England on the other hand having a 2005/2009 Ashes sort of thing or a world T20 2010 thing once in a lifetime. The only team that England can beat is the West Indies in today's cricket and they still need not fear Australia or any other team whatsoever.

A bold decision by Ponting

Well there are at present two test series' going on in parallel namely, the tour of England over Bangladesh and the other one being the Australian tour of New Zealand. However, if both the tournaments are considered, it looks that the Bangladesh have shown better performance against England compared to New Zealand's performance against Australia. This was evident from the fact that there, the England captain didn't turn up to impose a follow on over Bangladesh while here, Ponting took no further thinking in imposing the same against New Zealand. This itself shows the caliber of the New Zealand team.

In just one full day, New Zealand lost as many as 11 wickets which is as good as getting all out and losing a wicket extra. The entire day belonged to New Zealand which saw them bat without any Aussie taking the crease. The New Zealand team had ended the previous day that is day 2 with 108 runs on the board and losing 4 wickets which included an unbeaten 5^th wicket partnership of 65 runs between Vettori and McCullum which could last for just 4 more runs on day 3 of the test match. It would not be longer for the Kiwis to lose the remaining 9 wickets in a similar fashion.

New Zealand were playing at home and no excuses regarding their debacle can be entertained. The first innings of New Zealand lasted for just 49 runs with 6 losses of wickets inbetween. After the loss of the 4^th wicket on the 2^nd day's play, New Zealand were expected to put up a fighting performance atleast if not a match winning one. But, all that happened was the continuation of the bad work that was seen by the New Zealand batsmen in the initial part of the first innings. And if that was not enough, they lost yet another wicket in the second innings of their batting when Watling lost out to a controversial decision.

Whatever, the highlight of the day's play was the Australian captain Ricky Ponting imposing a follow on upon the New Zealand team. Ponting was never found doing such a thing in the past despite there being a huge margin. I remember Ponting deciding to continue batting in the first test against England in the Ashes 2007 with a lead of 445 runs. And then, in the recently concluded test series against Pakistan, Ponting decided not to go in for a follow on despite the fact that Pakistan failed to cash out an opportunity to win a test at Sydney. These were the cases where Australia were hosting unlike in the current test against New Zealand. This shows some maturity of Ponting as a captain.