Will MS Dhoni overcome his lean patch?

Will MS Dhoni overcome his lean patch?: MS Dhoni, easily the best finisher in his generation that the game has seen, seems to be have lost his magical touch in past couple of months. Especially, this year he has been facing a lean patch and looks to have lost his confidence, that helped him put his weigh behind any and every shot that he’d decide to play notwithstanding the bowler.

Dhoni hasn’t scored runs at a his natural pace in the last couple of years, his strike rates have been gradually decreasing every passing year. His strike rate for the year 2013 was 96 and in 2014 he had a strike rate of 92 which has come down to 85 in 2015.The Indian skipper, who used to stay unbeaten in chases irrespective of the results, has gone missing as in the 10 innings he batted in 2nd innings since January 2014, he remained unbeaten on only 2 occasions in chases and both came in the recent World Cup with once against West Indies and other against Zimbabwe.

The Dhoni of past, used to guide India to above par total with his fire power has been missing as well. In last 3 years, Dhoni managed to remain unbeaten in first innings only in 8 out of 19 he played in and in 8 innings he failed to maintain a strike rate of 100. To make it worse, he didn’t manage to score even at a rate of 80 in those 8 innings effecting the team’s total on a couple of occasions.

MS Dhoni’s year wise stats since 2013:

Reason behind his recent failures can be the pressure of captaincy and the sinking confidence has pulled down his ability to score the runs he’d, at the frequency and rate he did. After retiring from Test Cricket, his major burden got released but he has failed to get going. However, the champion that he has been it is not so far we might see Dhoni performing like before but he needs a big knock to boost his confidence.

For that MS needs to give himself the chance, should promote himself up the order or come to the crease early than what he has been for the last couple of games and bat at a stage where he might not be under the pressure of the scoring rate. If he does so, he can settle himself in the crease to unleash the beast in him in the death overs which will be a huge positive point for India.