‘Obnoxious’ Dhoni under fire after new tour flop

NEW DELHI: Beleaguered skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni was put on notice by his predecessors Wednesday after India suffered yet another away series defeat, with one of them calling his leadership "obnoxious".

The 1-0 loss to New Zealand on Tuesday was India´s fourth consecutive series defeat abroad and followed a 4-0 drubbing for Dhoni´s World Cup champions in the preceding one-dayers.

India have now lost 10 of their last 12 Tests abroad -- the other two were drawn -- a record that included two successive 4-0 whitewashes in England and Australia.

As the media trained its guns on Dhoni, former captain Sourav Ganguly said his Test captaincy was "obnoxious", while Rahul Dravid hinted his strategy was too timid to win in the five-day format.

Both, however, wanted him to remain Test skipper until next year´s 50 over World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, while another ex-captain Sunil Gavaskar stressed that a leader was only as good as his team."If the World Cup was not less than a year away, I would have agreed that Dhoni needed to be removed as captain," Ganguly told the Headlines Today news channel.

"His Test captaincy has been obnoxious. But changing captains now will unsettle the team. His place is not in doubt in Test cricket, but Dhoni needs to set the overseas record right."

Dravid agreed with the perception that Dhoni was a defensive captain, saying he needed to take risks if he wanted to win Test matches abroad.

Dhoni was widely derided for his defensive field placements in New Zealand which also followed claims he blew the chance of a rare overseas victory in South Africa in December by failing to go for the jugular.

"I think he´s got to realise this very quickly, that if he wants to win Test matches abroad, he´s got to risk it all," Dravid told the Cricinfo website.

"He’s got to take that chance that he´s going to have to lose some Test matches. The only way you can win abroad is to take a few risks, take a few gambles."