Agencies, Varanasi
Former Indian cricket star Manoj Prabhakar today said there was no alternative to Mahendra Singh Dhoni as a captain and batsman but the Indian skipper would have to change his mind set.
“Still, Dhoni is the best option for captaining the Indian cricket team but he will have to make minor adjustments as far as his mental make up is concerned,” the ace all rounder of Team India in 1980s and 1990s told reporters here. He was here to attend a private function.
Prabhakar was of the view that Dhoni should promote himself in the batting order in One dayers as the Indian batting had weakened after retirement of Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar.
He said the Indian cricket board should also evolve the ways to blood in new talents in the team. “They should be used in a planned manner so that the best can be extracted from new players,” he said.
The former Indian opening bowler, who also opened the batting in some matches, expressed his concern over paucity of quality all rounders in the country. “There was a time when the world cup winning team in 1983 had four all rounders and now they have none,” he pointed out.
In the same vein, Manoj also regretted the absence of truly class spinners. The present lot of spinners clearly lack the sharpness to trouble good batting attack.
In reply to a question, he advocated the Indian coach for the cricket team.”The Indian coach can communicate with the players in a better and effective way than some foreigner,” he reasoned.
