West Indian legend Clive Lloyd feels the Indian captain MS Dhoni leading India in all the three formats has added too much on his playe.
In an interview to Mid Day, he said, “He has a lot on his plate. Don’t forget he keeps wickets too, so he has to concentrate every ball. It is not that he fields in the outfield where the ball will come to him once in a while. Everybody can only take that much. Sometimes you don’t even know when you are mentally tired.”
The former West Indian captain feels the administrators and the coach should assess his work load. When asked about relieving Dhoni of Test captaincy, he said, “It depends on him. He’s done excellently as captain of India. Now, here is where the administrators and coaches come in – to evaluate whether he needs a rest. Cars break down and they are made of steel. You must think about whether they are playing too much cricket and are they playing to potential. India have some good players.”
The captain of the two-time world cup winning West Indies team feels the T20 format has completely changed the way game is approached by modern cricketers.
“I read Sunil Gavaskar’s and Imran Khan’s views on the influence the Indian Premier League (IPL) is having on Indian cricket. I think the players are stale, “said Lloyd. “You can’t just go off the boil just like that and I don’t think the guys are realising the amount of cricket they are playing. I was hoping for a better schedule overall. A couple of years before the IPL, there were people who were saying they were tired and needed a rest. Now, we don’t hear that anymore (laughs).”
He added, “The money is good but the body can take only that much. The little guy we have – (Sunil) Narine. He’s probably a very good bowler, but he has been thrown into Test matches one day, the IPL another day and at such a young age it is very difficult to adjust to all those games so quickly.
“The other thing is that you see all the young players now thinking that you have to hit the ball over the boundary otherwise you are not going to be selected.”
So we are not going to see many cover drives which players like (Sunil) Gavaskar and (Gundappa) Vishwanath used to execute. Today’s players will try and hit it over covers. So you (selectors) have to allocate wisely as to which guys will adapt to each format.
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