Is This The End Of Dhoni's Captaincy?

NEW DELHI: The time is right for MS Dhoni to hand over the ODI Captaincy to Virat Kohli, with the former having retired from test cricket -- or so thinks former Indian team director and all rounder Ravi Shastri. Dhoni captained the team across all formats till December 2014, when he retired from Test cricket mid-series in Australia. Virat Kohli who currently captains India in Test cricket has held the ODI captain's cap at some occasions and holds an impressive record.

Shastri whose contract as Indian Team Director expired after India's exit from the World T20 says the switch is "in interest of Indian cricket. This is not the first time that Dhoni's captaincy is put in question. Earlier former captain Sourav Ganguly has said that he would be surprised if current limited overs skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni leads the Indian team in 2019 World Cup and backed Virat Kohli to be given the leadership role soon.

“MS Dhoni has been captain for nine years, which is a long period. He has been fantastic in the way he has gone about his job as captain, but does he have the ability in next four years to see India into the World in 2019. Does he have it in him to go for another four years? He has already given up Test cricket and now plays only ODIs and T20s,” Ganguly told PTI.

Kohli who is said to be in his best and most destructive form is among the top contendor to take over ODI captaincy from Dhoni. Virat’s massive record of 973 runs in the IPL along with his captaincy skills to lead his team to the finals has added to his chances of being the next captain on the other hand the demand for Dhoni to step down as Team India captain gained support after the poor performance of Dhoni’s team Rising Pune Supergiants in the just concluded season of Indian Premiere League finishing second last in the points table.

Former Indian captains like Bishan Singh Bedi, Dilip Vengsarkar, Ajit Wadekar and players like Chetan Chauhan, Chandu Borde, Syed Kirmani and Kiran More strongly backed Dhoni, saying that there is no need to press the panic button and Dhoni is indeed the best bet till 2019 World Cup. Amid all this controversy Harsha Bhogle tweeted “Very few finishers in the history of the game have been as good as Dhoni. Won't be easy to find someone else nearly as good”.

MS Dhoni has had a tough year with successive series defeats to Bangladesh, South Africa and Australia which were followed by a failure to defend the WT20 crown and then a below average performance in IPL . However one cannot simply neglect the contribution of MS Dhoni in international cricket . Dhoni is termed as one of the most succesfull captains in the history of world cricket and has several titles under his belt which includes making India World Champion in 2011 the only after 1983.