I concur

AR: Now to the question that you have picked as the best one that has come in for you this week. Sandip from the United States wants to know: should MS Dhoni be made India's Test captain? He says that Anil Kumble has been captain of the Test side for a few months now and Dhoni has been the captain for the one-dayers and Twenty20 matches for a similar amount of time. It is very evident that Dhoni has matured tremendously in a short span of time. Is the time ripe now for the Indian selectors to politely replace Kumble with Dhoni as captain of the Indian Test team for the upcoming series against Australia?

GB: My answer to that is simple: no. There has never been a wicketkeeper-batsman who has been a successful captain in Test cricket over a period of time. Occasionally a wicketkeeper has captained an odd Test match. But to do everything, like dealing with the press, wicketkeeping, and batting day after day, match after match is too difficult.

Let me explain to you: stand in front of the mirror, go down on your haunches and come back again. That is what the wicketkeeper does, for 90 overs a day, for 540 balls, plus the throwing and the extras, and so you go up and down about 600 times a day. Most of you will be lucky if you can do that 50 times in front of the mirror. It is very tiring. On top of that, you have the mental situation of having to work out in your head between balls who is going to bowl, what will be the field positions, and still catch the ball if it comes to you.

What has happened in the past when wicketkeepers were captains is that they were concentrating too much on where the fielders should be and who is going to bowl next and so they started dropping catches. I have great respect for Dhoni and I think he has done a wonderful job in one-day cricket. He probably could captain in Tests too but it's just that his position as wicketkeeper makes it all difficult when you add it together.

In one-day cricket, you only have 20 overs or 50 overs to keep wickets - three and a half hours at most to keep wickets. Then he gets a couple of days off. In Test cricket there are no days off. It lasts for five days solid. You have done one innings and then you have to do a second innings. Then you probably get three days off before another Test match because administrators are shoving Test cricket and one-day cricket in as much as they can. Now on top of that, they are shoving in as much Twenty20 cricket as they can. So it is going to get very difficult. It is not that Dhoni can't do it mentally; it is not that he isn't up to the challenge. I think he is, he is very knowledgeable, but it is his position as wicketkeeper that makes it very difficult to encompass captaincy and keeping wickets well.