M S Dhoni avoids probing questions on his captaincy

Under-fire Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni today refused to be drawn into a debate over split captaincy theory as suggested by former greats after his team's humiliating 1-2 Test series defeat against England.

"Your question on my view about split captaincy is good but let's stick to T20 format as we have a T20 game tomorrow," was Dhoni's curt reply when a local reporter asked him about the hotly debated topic. That Dhoni was trying to sidestep the issue became evident when he gave the same answer in a roundabout manner to a British journalist.

"Before the start of an important series, I don't want to comment on that. Because when it comes to Indian cricket, if it's not going the right way, questions pop up about captaincy, senior players, junior players, the kind of talent we have got, the bench strength we have got. Everything will

pop up and if you keep answering, I think we will be short of time," was the Indian captain's reply to his query. He was trying to repeatedly evade tough questions on India's failure.

"No point looking too much into the past. That I have always said, whether you do well or do badly, it is important to stick to the present and the coming format is very different. Let's stick to it."

"It's a completely different format, so I don't think there's any point carrying anything from the Test series. It's a very different format altogether," the Indian skipper said, presenting a dead bat to anything and everything asked about Tests.

Dhoni saw some positives to emerge from the Test loss to England.

"It was disappointing that we did not win the series and also after a long period at home. But in the last Test match (at Nagpur) we did pretty well. The wicket was quite flat. Still there were plenty of positives (from the series).

... contd.

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