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MS Dhoni: statistics. The Times of India

MS Dhoni: statistics The Times of India

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MS Dhoni: statistics. The Times of India

MS Dhoni: statistics. The Times of India

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Basic facts

Dhoni is an Indian cricket player, with many records to his credit.

Dhoni played 90 Tests in a career that spanned 2005-2014.

Born July 7, 1981, in Ranchi

Teams that he played for: India, Asia XI, Bihar, Chennai Super Kings, Jharkhand

Place in the teams: As wicketkeeper and batsman

Batted as: Right-hand bat

Bowled as Right-arm medium

Fielded as: Wicketkeeper

Announced retirement from test cricket on: 30 Dec 2014 (After India lost the test series to Australia)

Early life

Kaushik Rangarajan, cricbuzz reminds us:

The beginnings were small and humble, as it often is, for Indian cricketers from middle-class backgrounds. Dhoni, having excelled in school and club cricket, moved to Kharagpur, as a 20-year-old, in search of employment. The then-divisional railway manager of South Eastern Railway was in need of a wicket-keeper batsman. 60 balls later, Dhoni was handed a job via Sports Quota. While it was well known in local circles that Dhoni was cut-out for bigger things, he almost, quite literally, missed the flight to a career in international cricket. Having not been informed of his selection in the East Zone side, Dhoni, who was offered a ride to the Kolkata airport, suffered another heartbreak when the car broke down midway thereby allowing Deep Dasgupta to play the Duleep Trophy game the next morning. But success can never be contained, only delayed. He fought his way through the rigors of domestic cricket and won his first Test Cap in 2005 against Sri Lanka in Chennai, a city that would embrace him as their own in later years.

2008-2014: highest no. of matches

Since the start of 2008 - taking into account international matches across formats, IPL and Champions League T20 games - Dhoni has played 398 matches, the most for any cricket during this period. Suresh Raina is second with 369 games.

As captain of the Indian team

Highlights

Tenure as skipper: 2008-2014

His first Test as captain was against South Africa in Kanpur in April 2008, because of an injury to regular captain Anil Kumble, and he took over full time after Kumble retired following the Delhi Test against Australia in October. Dhoni led India to the No. 1 Test ranking in 2009, a position it enjoyed until the tour of England in 2011.

Most successful Indian skipper

Dhoni's captaincy record: 60 matches, 27 wins, 18 losses, 15 draws, win% 45. Second comes Sourav Ganguly with 21 wins in 49 matches, win% 42.85.

Most successful Indian skipper at home

Dhoni's captaincy record: 30 matches, 21 wins, 3 losses, 6 draws, win % 70. Second comes Mohammad Azharuddin with 13 wins in 20 matches, win % 65.

Most runs as India’s captain

Dhoni's numbers: 3454 runs, 5 hundreds, 24 fifties, avg 40.63. Second comes Sunil Gavaskar with 3449 runs with 11 hundreds and 14 fifties at an avg of 50.72.

Highest individual score by an Indian captain

Dhoni's numbers: 224 off 265 against Australia in 2013. Second comes Sachin Tendulkar with 217 off 344 against New Zealand in 1999.

Highest individual score by a wicket-keeper captain

Dhoni's numbers: 224 off 265 against Australia in 2013. Second comes Mushfiqur Rahim with 200 off 321 against Sri Lanka in 2013.

Captaincy: Analysis

Partha Bhaduri The Times of India Dec 31 2014

It was in Johannesburg in 2007, at the first World T20, that Dhoni was handed the reins of the T20 squad. The Test captaincy, at that point, seemed a distant dream. The seniors had refused to play the tournament and the captaincy came his way. Dhoni was then a long-locked hitter who kept wickets but had little reputation as a tactician. His decisions at crucial moments went a long way towards India winning the tournament, and Indian cricket wasn't the same again.

He seemed bashful and shy in those first few days in South Africa, embarrassed even to have been catapulted to a role of such importance. By the time he said goodbye to Tests, he had become the quintessential reclusive superstar, having confined himself to a stratosphere even many teammates could not breach. VVS Laxman, when he retired, said he could not reach Dhoni on the phone to give him the news.

Dhoni had the instinct of a gambler but not the finesse of the blackjack dealer. It didn't seem to matter. At one point he seemed two steps ahead of any rival skipper. India couldn't do without him. It was a natural progression when he replaced Anil Kumble as Test skipper. The only concern was that he was playing too much cricket, and it seemed impossible for one man to keep up with the busy itineraries chalked out by the board. But this was Dhoni, and he persevered year after year. It began to grate. It is ironic that a man credited with the hasty departures of a few Test legends had himself to quit the format in an unceremonious manner. Kohli, a brash, young batsman with dreams of world domination made headlines after he led in Adelaide. A new era was ready to stamp its presence.

As batsman

Runs scored

4876 runs scored at an average of 38

Highest score

224 against Australia in Chennai in 2013

As wicketkeeper

Wickets taken

As a wicketkeeper: 294 dismissals, the fifth highest in Test cricket

Highest individual score by an Indian wicket-keeper

Dhoni's numbers: 224 off 265 against Australia in 2013. Second comes BK Kunderan with 192 against England in 1964.

Most dismissals in a match by an Indian wicket-keeper

Dhoni's numbers: 9 dismissals - 8 catches and 1 stumping against Australia in 2014. Nayan Mongia (twice) and Dhoni himself (thrice) occupy the second spot with 8 dismissals.

Dismissals by Dhoni

Most dismissals and most catches by an Indian wicket-keeper

Dhoni's statistics: 294 dismissals - 256 catches and 38 stumpings. Second comes Syed Kirmani with 198 dismissals - 160 catches and 38 stumpings.

Negatives

Partha Bhaduri The Times of India Dec 31 2014

Captains have use-by dates and Dhoni seemed to have passed his. His field placements were odd, his use of bowlers perplexing. Often, he would let a game adrift. His batting failed to stamp its presence. The Midas touch had deserted him.

Dhoni was always an accidental Test cricketer. His batting, so brutally effective in One-dayers, didn't have the technical nous to survive the rigours of Test cricket. His wicketkeeping, like his batting, was hardly elegant but effective.

Yet survive he did, improvising, using the oodles of common sense which had enabled him to rise from small-town Ranchi origins to becoming the biggest name in world cricket. He made it as a leader and a batsman.

2014: decline begins

In 2014 Dhoni suffered from fitness issues, missing five ODIs against Sri Lanka in November because of a hand injury, which also sidelined him from the first Test against Australia in Adelaide. In addition to the pressure of leading India in all three formats, and the Chennai Super Kings franchise, for six years Dhoni has also had to play an extraordinary amount of matches.

His batting form took a dip in 2014 and he averaged only 33 in 17 innings this year. His wicketkeeping has also deteriorated, in particular his ability to move laterally to take testing catches. India's overseas results have also suffered under Dhoni's leadership in recent years. Since 2011, they have won only two out of 22 away Tests and lost 13.

Statistics

As on 30 Dec 2014

Batting and fielding averages

Bowling statistics

Boria Majumdar on Dhoni’s test cricket

Captain Cool Passes The Baton The Times of India Dec 31 2014

Dhoni is at his best in shorter formats, his decision to retire from Test cricket is commendable

He has led India in 60 Test matches, more than any other cricketer ever has in India's cricket story from 1932. He has won 27 of them and lost 18. Going by numbers he will go down in history as India's most successful Test match captain ever.

But are these numbers good enough to grasp his real legacy?

Should other issues be brought into the mix to assess Mahendra Singh Dhoni's contribution as India's Test match captain?

And is it important to add to the mix the fact that he decided to leave in the middle of a Test series when many like Sourav Ganguly feel he should have finished off the series as skipper? Also, is his decision to retire from Test cricket and not simply give up captaincy significant enough to impact his long-term legacy? Finally , could he have continued as a batsman for a year or more and offered something to the team in the Test match arena?

His rather poor Test record overseas, 15 Test losses including eight straight defeats in 2011-12 makes Dhoni's legacy as Test match captain a mixed one at best.

Under Dhoni India made it to pole position in world Test rankings in 2009, the only time in cricket history .India continued as the world's number one team for 18 months and in doing so beat New Zealand in New Zealand in 2009 and drew against South Africa in South Africa in 2010.

But post-World Cup 2011, Dhoni's finest hour as ODI skipper, all went steadily downhill for him and Team India. Losses in England and Australia and more importantly the manner of those losses meant his captaincy overseas would soon become the subject of intense scrutiny . India was hardly able to compete and all of a sudden all the good work under Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble between 2002-08 was undone.

Dhoni, unlike many others before him, was given a long rope by BCCI based on his ODI and T20 performances. Despite that the team's performance hardly improved in the 12 away Tests India played between December 2013 and December 2014. Yes, Dhoni led the team to a famous victory at Lord's in July 2014, perhaps one of India's best ever, but in retrospect it was more an aberration than anything else.

What followed the Lord's performance was abject surrender and by the time the England series ended at the Oval in August 2014, India was being labelled the worst traveller in contemporary Test cricket.

Most importantly , Dhoni the batsman wasn't able to do much to help Dhoni the captain. A few good innings in England notwithstanding, Dhoni hardly played a match-winning or even a match-saving knock in Test cricket overseas. The cliché of leading from the front, which he often does in ODI cricket, wasn't in evidence in the longer format of the game.

This becomes all the more significant if we compare Dhoni the ODI player with Dhoni in Tests. In ODI cricket he is a match winner of gigan tic proportions and will clearly go down in history as India's best ever ODI captain so far. Having won the 2011 World Cup and 2013 Champions Trophy , not to mention the 2007 World T20, Dhoni has already made the position of India's best captain in the shorter formats his own.

But Test cricket is a very different story . And the moment we bring winning overseas into the equation Dhoni's fall from grace is a grim reality .

It is his ability to face up to this truth that makes his decision to retire a commendable one. It takes a lot of courage to accept that things are not working well and it is time to step down and pass on the mantle to the heir apparent. Not many in India's cricket history have been able to do this and in this regard Dhoni is a rare exception.

Will it add to his legacy? That he passed on the mantle to Virat Kohli of his own accord and that selectors did not have to force his hand will surely work in his favour as we assess the long-term legacy of M S Dhoni as India's Test captain. In leaving the job he has kept the welfare of the team in mind and that is indeed a deed of serious significance.

Under Dhoni the team has often looked deflated and lacked energy .In the four years between 2011-15 he wasn't able to turn the tide. Add to this the fact that Kohli has stepped up his game in this series in Australia and has captained the team really well in Adelaide.

So how will we remember Dhoni in the echelons of India's cricket captains? Rather, in the pantheon of the country's Test match captains? It is important to make this distinction because in the ODI format the debate is done and dusted. While he is indeed the best in ODI cricket, the jury will forever be out in calling him the best ever in Test cricket despite having won the most number of matches.

The writer is [the thinking Indian’s pre-eminent] sports historian.

Retirement

From test cricket

Partha Bhaduri The Times of India Dec 31 2014

In A Sudden, Surprising Move, Indian Skipper Retired From TestsCommon Sense Helped Dhoni Make His Mark In A Format In Which He Had Little Technical Nous

M S Dhoni's Test career came to an end in the same way that he hadoften played his cricket -with a quirky, inscrutable move that seemed to defy logic and left eyebrows raised all around.

The Indian cricket board (BCCI) announced Dhoni's retirement from Test cricket, effective immediately , minutes after India managed a draw in the third Test at the MCG on Tuesday .

Dhoni had had a good match in Melbourne. He fought it out for 39 balls, scoring an unbeaten 24 as India managed to avoid yet another defeat in an overseas Test. He also effected nine dismissals behind the stumps, the most by an Indian wicketkeeper in a Test. But India was by then 0-2 behind in the four-Test series. With a third match drawn and only one match left, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy had been conceded to Australia.Dhoni decided he had had enough.

The decision had been brewing for a while but a phone call to BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel sealed the deal. Patel revealed that Dhoni phoned him soon after the Test in Melbourne end ed to convey the news. He also asked Patel to delay the announcement slightly as he wanted to inform the team. A little later, he called up Patel and told him he could go ahead.

Dhoni didn't give even a whiff of his retirement at the post-match interaction. He talked about sledging, he talked about draws. He went on and on. But not a word on retirement.

The BCCI did it for him mere moments after he left, citing “the strain of playing all formats“ as the reason for his abrupt departure. The team hotel here in the heart of Melbourne's CBD was immediately locked down for all outsiders. It was, like one of his stumpings, deftly done.

From being the leader of a team which rose to the top of the world Test rankings, Dhoni's fortunes nosedived, leading to his swift, silent departure in the middle of an important series. He hands the reins over to a still-learning, still-maturing Virat Kohli. Some will say it is a cop-out.Others will say it was long overdue.

Relationships

Laxmi Raai

The Times of India

According to a report, Tamil actress Laxmi Raai broke up with cricketer MS Dhoni in 2009, but she says she still keeps stumbling upon reports that talk about their affair and she hates it. Reportedly, the actress changed her name to Raai Laxmi and has been in three relationships since, but the past seems to stick on. "I've begun to believe that my relationship with Dhoni is like a stain or a scar which won't go away for a long time. I'm surprised that people still have the energy and patience left to talk about it even now. Every time TV channels dig into Dhoni's past, they make it a point to bring up our relationship. I dread to think that some day in the future, my kids will see it on TV and ask me about it! I have had three or four relationships after Dhoni, but no one seems to have noticed it," the report quotes the actress. However, there seems to be no love lost between her and Dhoni, the report further states. "I knew him really well and don't know if I can call it a relationship because it never worked out. We still have respect for each other. He has moved on and gotten married. That's the end of the story . I'm a very happy person right now and work is my priority," the report quotes the actress.