MS Dhoni keeps three dogs, a labrador, an alsatian, and a weimaraner. "The best thing about them," he has said, "is that even after winning a series, or losing a series, they treat me the same way."

The appeal of their constancy is easy to understand. It was only last year that the debate about Dhoni was whether or not he was the best captain in Indian history. His main rival for that title, Sourav Ganguly, was unequivocal, describing Dhoni as "obviously the greatest captain to lead our country". Nowadays the talk is about whether or not he should still be in the team, let alone leading the side. The calls for him to be sacked have been growing louder and louder since the side were knocked out of World Twenty20.

At his best, Dhoni's attitude towards captaincy seemed to be that if a job needed doing, he would best do it himself. In the last World Cup he managed a top score of 34 in seven innings in the run-up to the final, though that poor form did not stop him from fronting up at every single press conference his team gave in the space of those seven weeks, something he did to spare his players from the ordeal of the Indian media.

In the final, of course, with India teetering at 114 for three, he promoted himself up to No5 in the order and won the match with an innings of 91 not out, sealing it with a six over long-on.

Two months later, during the first Test against England at Lord's, India found themselves a bowler short after Zaheer Khan pulled out with a hamstring injury. Dhoni's response, memorably, was to peel off his wicketkeeping gloves, pass them to Rahul Dravid, and bring himself on to bowl. Some scoffed, but he was within an inch or so of having Kevin Pietersen lbw with his first ball, and even called for a review when he thought he had him caught behind. It took brass neck, and, as Alec Baldwin puts it in Glengarry Glen Ross, brass balls too.

That was then, though, when India were unbeaten in each and every one of the 12 Test series they had played under Dhoni's captaincy, a run that had taken them to the top of the world Test rankings. A pair of 4-0 series defeats in England and Australia have drained a lot of the lustre from the memories. Dhoni might have lost his job already had it not been for the lack of credible alternatives. The one man who many reckoned was a contender to replace him, Virat Kohli, has done little to advance his claims with his dismal batting in this series.

Two years or so ago, you feel Dhoni would have played Canute and tried to find a way to turn back the tide of Alastair Cook's batting. In this match, though, he seems to have been happy to sit back and let the waters lap around him. He looks spent, shorn of ideas, and short of inspiration. No team looks good when they are losing, but India, who have more camels in the field than the French Foreign Legion, look worse than most.

It is one of the oldest truisms in cricket that the wicketkeeper sets the tone for his side in the field. Dhoni has given away 44 byes in five innings so far in this series, four times as many as Matt Prior. Raising the standard in the field is, again, simply a matter of the captain and coach imposing their will and forcing the players to work harder. Neither Dhoni nor the coach Duncan Fletcher seem to have the inclination – or perhaps the authority – to do that.

Tactically Dhoni was never that sharp, but he would at least try things. Against Australia in 2008, for instance, he set 8-1 fields biased to the off side at Nagpur, to try and bore the batsmen out. Bringing Yuvraj Singh on to bowl at Pietersen used to seem innovative, but now the joke has worn so old that it will probably pop up on a BBC 3 repeat some time on Boxing Day.

Otherwise, Dhoni stuck with the same four bowlers, rotating them like a salesman trying to shift old stock by swapping it around in the storefront window.

Dhoni's greatest asset as a captain was always his phlegmatic disposition. He has been blessed with Kipling's gift, treating triumph and disaster much the same, and it enabled him to cope with the unique pressures of his job. Now, though, he seems to have taken it too far.

"The captaincy is a position I hold, and it's an added responsibility," he said at the start of this year. "It's not something I want to stick to. If there is a better replacement, he can come in." He has the air of a man who has been ground down by the burden he carries.