BCCI has announced a 18 member squad for the T20 World Cup 2021 with MS Dhoni as the mentor. The fans have gone berserk after the announcement came in on Wednesday evening. There are a few surprises in the list with some expected players not in the squad. MS Dhoni’s comeback into the team though has got many fans rejoicing. MS’ role in the team would be that of a mentor, here’s what is the meaning of mentor and his role in Cricket.
Meaning of ‘Mentor’ in Cricket
A mentor is a person who is appointed in a team due to his experience and expertise in the game of Cricket. The mission of Cricket Mentoring is to provide the players the knowledge which they lack. A mentor helps the players in order to assist them to achieve the goals. MS Dhoni, the former Captain of Indian Team, is the only Captain ever to win all the ICC tournaments and possibly the best choice for the mentoring role in the team. MS, back in 2007, led a very young Indian side to the T20 World Cup victory. He also went on to lift the 50-over World Cup and the Champions trophy in 2011 & 2013 respectively.
Often the terms mentoring and coaching are confused with each other but both are different from each other. Coaching is a more structured and a training approach where the coach measures the performances. On the other hand, mentoring is softer way of guidance where the mentee builds a relationship with the players over the time.
MS Dhoni, who already has a good relationship with most of the Indian players in the squad is the most appropriate mentor for the team. Most of the players in the squad have played under Dhoni’s captaincy. Clearly, no one else fits in better than MS Dhoni in the team. Owing to his past cricket experiences he’s the best person to do justice to the meaning of the word Mentor.
T20 World Cup Squad
Virat Kohli (Captain), Rohit Sharma (vc), KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya, R. Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Rahul Chahar,Axar Patel, Varun Chakravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohd Shami
Standby players: Shreyas Iyer, Shardul Thakur and Deepak Chahar
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Who misses out?
Shikhar Dhawan and Yuzvendra Chahal are the two big names who haven’t made it to the squad. Sanju Samson and Manish Pandey are the two batters who couldn’t grab the opportunities given to them in recent past and hence they are not given a place in the squad. Washington Sundar who is currently suffering from a finger injury has also missed out. Another close contender, T Natarajan, was also not given a place in the squad.