His power-hitting ability could be in decline, but vastly experienced MS Dhoni will still be key to India's hopes of winning the upcoming World Cup, said former England captain Nasser Hussain, who believes the great wicketkeeper batsman and ex-skipper Dhoni will be an asset to leader Virat Kohli & his team during this summer in the United Kingdom.
"MS Dhoni is hugely important for India's chances at the World Cup," Nasser told firstpost.com in an interview. "There are certain cricketers around the world who rise to the occasion and are big-match players and Dhoni is one of them. The bigger the occasion and the more the pressure he is under, Dhoni is the one who seems to soak up that pressure and pace the innings brilliantly. Some have argued that his skills in 50-over cricket have been on the wane slightly but I'm not so sure about that."
"As we have seen recently, he still knows how to handle pressure situations and read the game-situation and when you are going into massive tournaments like the World Cup you want guys like MS Dhoni with you and there is no doubt that he's one of the greatest finishers there has ever been in the game of cricket."
India's bowling will be its other big strength in England and Wales. While the pace trio of Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Shami and Bhuvneshwar Kumar will be doing the job with the new ball and at the death, spinners Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravindra Jadeja are expected to strike regularly during the middle overs.
"Previously at World Cups there may have been question marks over the Indian seam-bowling but that is now an area where they have really strengthened in the last 2-3 years with Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Bhuvneshwar Kumar coming into the side," said Hussain.
"The only thing I would say is that there could be a weakness in India's lower-order batting. If you look at England's batting line-up they would have someone like Liam Plunkett coming in at number 10 and Adil Rashid at number 11 and sides nowadays bat all the way down."
"But in India's line-up, after Dhoni we have the likes of Bhuvneshwar and their spinners who don't bat that much. So maybe their depth in batting could be an area where they can't go quite as hard."
"However, it is also true that Kohli, Dhoni and Rohit Sharma are so prolific at the top that they don't worry too much about the depth in their batting. But maybe this could also explain why Dhoni doesn't go as hard early in his innings at the bowling because he's worried that he's left with the tail too early in the innings."
On the back of various strengths, Nasser thinks Team India remains one of the favourites to lift that prestigious trophy on July 14 at Lord's. "There are 6 or 7 teams who can win the World Cup and India are certainly amongst the 2 or 3 favourites. Any Indian cricketer will tell you that even before you put on the Indian shirt you are under immense pressure to perform because of the fact that there are so many other players who will perform and go ahead of them if they don't."
"When they play, everyone expects so much of them whether it's an IPL game, an international match or a domestic match for Mumbai or any other domestic team . The fact is that wherever the game is played in India, the players grow up with that sort of pressure and it becomes second-nature to them, so it becomes part and parcel of being an Indian cricketer to them."
"For Indian players, a World Cup game is no different from any other game because when you play for India you are under constant pressure and under the microscope. There are millions and millions of Indians that want you to do well and expect you to do well which is why Indian players seem to handle that pressure very well," he concluded.
