Revision as of 05:06, 4 September 2017

Dhoni’s performance i) in ODIs, ii) as captain, iii) as batsman, as on 21 January, 2016; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, January 22, 2016

Dhoni's captaincy record, tests, ODIs and T20s as on January 16, 2016; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India

MS Dhoni: statistics. The Times of India

MS Dhoni: statistics The Times of India

The authors of this page include…

MS Dhoni: statistics. The Times of India

MS Dhoni: statistics. The Times of India

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.

Dhoni's ODI record and in the Champions Trophy, 2006-13, as on May 24, 2017; The Times of India, May 24, 2017

As captain of the Indian team

Appointment as the captain

Gaurav Gupta, Jan 05 2017: The Times of India

Achievements, as on 4 Jan 2017, when Dhoni relinquished the captaincy of the T20 and ODI teams; The Times of India, Jan 5, 2017

How a dozing MSD `stumped' Vengsarkar

Former India skipper Dilip Vengsarkar was the chief of the national selection committee which named MS Dhoni as the captain of the Indian team for the T20 World Cup in South Africa in September 2007. The rest, as they say , is history .

Vengsarkar narrated an interesting anecdote to TOI about how his attempt to `know' the man, who he was clear, should Indian team in near future, failed miserably , because Dhoni had dozed off while sitting next to him! “When I had decided to make him the captain, I didn't know him as a person at all, so I thought I'd have a chat with him. When I heard that he was going to Mumbai from Kolkata to watch a match, I changed my flight, so that we could talk a bit. Both of us were the only ones in the `business class' of that flight, which was two-and-half-hours long, so I thought that that was the best time to know more about him as a person,“ the 116Test veteran recalled, before revealing how Dhoni left him `stumped.' “However, the moment the flight took off, he dozed off, and only got up when we arrived at Mumbai. I had thought of making him the captain of the Indian team, but I couldn't talk to him!“ reminisced the 60-year-old.

Vengsarkar remembers a young Dhoni as a “modest, humble and well-behaved boy .“ Recalling his decision to appoint Dhoni as the T20, and then the ODI captain, the former chief selector said: “At that time, we hadn't played T20 cricket at all. I wanted guys in the team who'd bring energy. I thought that Dhoni could be the person who would do that. He had not even captained at the state level, but his overall approach to the game, the way he conducted himself on the ground, impressed me. I saw the spark of a good leader in him. He had a lot of seniors in the team, and he handled them very well.“

Vengsarkar was supportive of Dhoni's decision to end his captaincy career. “It's a wise call.

He played cricket on his own terms and went out on his own terms too. That's the greatness of a man.When he retired from Test cricket, I wasn't happy with that decision. He could've continued as a Test cricketer.He can play for a couple of seasons for Jharkhand, that would be a great contribution from him, provided he has the motivation to do that. It's up to him to call time on what has been a fantastic career,“ Vengsarkar complimented.

Vengsarkar, of course, didn't anticipate the massive success which Dhoni went on to enjoy for such a long time.“When you appoint `X,' `Y', `Z' as the captain of the team, you do it according to your gut feeling, that this man has the potential. How he creates history , is entirely up to him. When I picked Sachin Tendulkar, I didn't have an idea that he would become an all-time great, and when I selected Virat Kohli, I didn't know that he would go on to become the best batsman of the world,“ Vengsarkar concluded.

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.

Contribution as the captain, in brief

Aditya Bhattacharya, MS Dhoni the captain: A pioneer by all means, Jan 5, 2017: The Times of India

MS Dhoni, now the 'former Indian captain' after his surprise announcement, was 25 - three years removed from his international debut - when he was asked to lead a young and more pragmatic Indian cricket team at the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 in South Africa. It was a squad in which only Yuvraj Singh had played more international matches than Dhoni.

Dhoni was a young man entrusted with the responsibility of lifting the brand new 20-over World Cup, just four months since the catastrophe of the 50-over World Cup in the West Indies where India crashed out in the first round. But with this revamped, somewhat fresh-faced Indian team under Dhoni transforming from rank underdogs - remember, the BCCI had been very, very sceptical of the T20 format - into world champions, the nation had woken up to a new superstar. Overnight, a flamboyant batsman with long locks became India's modern-day leader, springing surprises not just with his looks, but also his decision-making. Here was a young man in the fast lane towards attaining legendary status.

When Dhoni took over the reins, issues lingered. Foremost, India were not yet world-beaters. They would usually be bullied abroad and not always found it easy against the tougher teams at home. The healthy practice of injecting young blood into the team, initiated by Sourav Ganguly during his tenure as captain, had receded. Dhoni, with no captaincy record to speak of, entered the fray as an outside punt by the selectors and took that transitional Indian team to unprecedented success - that of winning all three major ICC tournaments and No 1 in the Test Championship (and he remains India's most successful Test captain, despite that damning string of overseas losses in the latter half of his tenure).

Because of his quiet demeanour, Dhoni instilled poise in the team. He was not one to get flustered or drop his shoulders when the world was seemingly against his team. The tremendous backing he would provide his bowlers was trend-setting. No captain backed his spinners as much as Dhoni did. He made them bowl inside Powerplays, often opening the bowling with them. Ravichandran Ashwin marvelled at that move and today stands as the game's best spinner. Sealing with a six: Dhoni sends Nuwan Kulasekara into the crowd as India win the World Cup after 28 years (Getty Images) Before him, Harbhajan Singh would be given complete liberty to choose his field. Each time the scenario of India defending a target emerged, Dhoni operating his two spinners in tandem with one part-timer, made for magical viewing. Virender Sehwag and Suresh Raina contributed with match-winning performances with the ball too. The kind of motivational speeches Dhoni delivered were unheard of. Check YouTube and you will understand why so many got hooked on to the game because of him; even those with limited knowledge and interest. And even if on the inside he was nerve-racked, Dhoni appeared calm on the outside. The idea of asking your team-mates to just go out there and enjoy themselves may have sounded an absurd ideology at first, but it was the same belief in his players that allowed them to revel under him. Amid the several anecdotes that one would associate with Dhoni, backing Joginder Sharma bowl the last over against Pakistan in the World T20 final of 2007 should remain his finest. The MS Dhoni era began with India winning the inaugural edition of the World T20 in 2007 (Getty Images)

As Dhoni's unorthodox tactics and bold moves contributed to his rise as captain, there were occasions where some of his calls didn't go down well. After the Test series loss to Australia in 2007, Dhoni ensured the Indian ODI side had no place for Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid because they were considered slow in the shorter formats. Dhoni wanted a certain set of fielders and believed that faster legs would help him save runs and rotate strike better. Was it a popular call? No. Was it productive? Definitely. India won the CB series in Australia by beating Australia twice in the first two finals. Then came ODI series wins in New Zealand and Sri Lanka in early 2009.

The low of 0-4 Test defeats in England and Australia each saw Dhoni further run himself into uncharted territory during the disastrous tour of Australia in 2012, where the infamous 'rotation policy' saw one of Sehwag, Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir rested for games throughout the ODI series. It made Dhoni's intentions clear: performance was the ground for all selections. Simultaneously, Dhoni gave plenty of chances to the younger lot. The decision to make Rohit Sharma open the innings along with Shikhar Dhawan gave India their most reliable opening pair in years.

Timing has always been Dhoni's thing. It is what led him to promote himself ahead of Yuvraj in the 2011 World Cup final as he shrugged off indifferent form to come up with the innings of a lifetime. It was what led him to rack up scores of 148 and 183* from the No. 3 slot as the world woke up to Dhoni's potential. It was what led him to calling time on his Test career after two forgettable seasons. And probably it is what has led him to walk away from the captaincy.

This means that Dhoni finally gets to bat freely, as we've always liked him. Leadership always required him to bat with a degree of caution, and even though some of Dhoni's best batting came when he led India, somewhere along the way that aggressive attitude got lost. More than nine years on from that fateful evening in Johannesburg, Dhoni is India's most debatable cricketer. A scene from his biopic shows a young Dhoni demanding a poster of Tendulkar from his parents. Today, he is perhaps only next to the great man in terms of popularity among cricketers in India. Like Tendulkar, fans love to have an opinion of him. He may have not acquired the status of the great Tendulkar, but Dhoni managed to create zone of his own, where no other Indian player has gone. He is the best captain India has produced.

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.

As a wicketkeeper

First wicketkeeper to 100 ODI stumpings

India v Sri Lanka: MS Dhoni becomes first wicketkeeper to 100 ODI stumpings, Sep 3, 2017: The Times of India

HIGHLIGHTS

MS Dhoni went past Kumar Sangakkara's mark of 99 during the fifth match

Dhoni reached the landmark in his record 301st ODI when he stumped Akila Dananjaya

Sangakkara retired in 2015 with 99 stumpings to his credit in an ODI career that started in 2000

NEW DELHI: Former India captain MS Dhoni has become the first wicketkeeper in the history of ODI cricket to effect 100 stumpings, going past Kumar Sangakkara's mark of 99 during the fifth match against Sri Lanka at R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo on Sunday. Dhoni reached the landmark in his record 301st ODI when he stumped Akila Dananjaya. This was his 97th stumping in India blues, with three having come while representing an Asia XI in 2007.

Sri Lankan wicketkeeper-batsman Sangakkara retired in 2015 with 99 stumpings to his credit in an ODI career that started in 2000. At third in the all-time ODI list is Sri Lankan Romesh Kaluwitharana with 75, followed by Pakistan's Moin Khan with 73 and Australian Adam Gilchrist with 55.

Dhoni's record looks unlikely to be beaten. From active cricketers, the next best after him is Mushfiqur Rahim of Bangladesh with 40 stumpings in 176 ODIs. Of Dhoni's stumpings, the most have come off Harbhajan Singh - 19. Then comes Ravindra Jadeja, off whom he has effected 15 stumpings, followed by 14 off R Ashwin. Sangakkara remains the most successful wicketkeeper in ODIs, with a total of 482 dismissals (383 catches and 99 stumpings). Dhoni is second with 381 (281 catches, 100 stumpings).

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.

Decline begins

2011: Loses Relevance As Test Captain

The inscrutable skipper

PARTHA BHADURI The Times of India Jan 02 2015

From Being A Dressing Room Glue, Who Bridged The Gulf Between Seniors And Juniors, Mahendra Singh Dhoni Lost Relevance As Test Captain After 2011

It was in Colombo way back in 2010 that an emphatic stamp of approval emerged for Mahendra Singh Dhoni's captaincy. VVS Laxman had just scored a match-winning, unbeaten 103 at the P Sara Oval as India chased down 257 for a series-levelling win. “It's the best dressing room that I've been part of,“ Laxman declared immediately after the win. “The atmosphere is great and I've really enjoyed being there in the last two years or so. It's like a family, with everybody caring for each other. We enjoy each other's success, which is important.“

Asked who or what had made the biggest difference in the dressing room, Laxman was unequivocal. “MS is calm and handles success and failure equally .Everybody in the team is a star and everybody has a role. It's a much more relaxed dressing room. There's calmness, with no unnecessary tension. That's the hallmark of a good team.“

Those were the days when Gary Kirsten, appointed in March 2008, and Dhoni were forging an unassailable combine.Dhoni had won five series in succession, one of them in New Zealand. He had become the only Indian player to win his first four Tests as captain, and eight of his first 11, drawing the others.Kirsten came in midway and soothed the hurt of the grating Greg Chappell era.

India were unbeatable at home and a very strong side when touring, with the three stalwarts ­ Tendulkar, Laxman, Dravid ­ still having big runs to contribute. It all led up to the World Cup win as Yuvraj Singh and Gautam Gambhir came to the party .

Dhoni's fortunes as captain started plummeting the moment Kirsten left and the Tendulkars and Laxmans struggled to perform away from home. India's muchtouted middle generation ­ the Sehwags, Zaheers and Harbhajans ­ fell away in rapid succession.

India lost 15 of their next 22 Tests abroad following the World Cup win, and won only two, at Kingston and Lord's. With decay and dissolution all around him, Dhoni's strengths as a unifier of big egos ceased to matter. It was a time to lead from the front and it was here that he faltered.

Dhoni spent the next four years (2011-14) periodically parrying questions about his Test form and captaincy. He simultaneously shrugged off questions about hastening the retirements of some seniors. He often came across as an Indian cricket board (BCCI) lackey, sometimes comically so.

Sometimes, the carefully cultivated mask fell off. In August 2014, after the 1-3 loss to England, he appeared exasperated by the constant carping. “You will have to wait and watch if I am strong enough to cope with this loss or not,“ he snapped back.

Asked if he had contributed enough as captain, he said “Maybe, yes.“ In September 2014, Mike Brearley, one of cricket's most iconic captains, said Dhoni's captaincy was below-par. In Melbourne in the 2014-15 series, Ian Chappell labelled his captaincy “the worst I have seen in Test cricket“. Martin Crowe called his field placements “illogical“.

Dhoni continued to be silent and inscrutable, only occasionally offering tiny glimpses of his methods. “The way I play , my subconscious mind works more than my conscious mind,“ he told the BCCI's official website. “Although I am leading a young team, I don't like to give a plan that the bowler is not comfortable implementing.If I give them a plan, they will keep bowling in the same way without thinking. Tomorrow when they're on their own, they won't know what to do.“

Was Dhoni clearing the decks for his resignation? Or was he admitting he wasn't tactically up to scratch for Test cricket anymore?

He told Mark Nicholas in late 2014 that he “believed in the process more than the result“, adding: “My job is to get the team right and then move away . I don't believe in deserting when the chips are down.“

Dhoni quit at a time the administration of cricket in India was in deep unrest. Ironically for a man lauded for his ability to carry everybody along, Dhoni ended it all by declaring that there was “unrest“ in the dressing room too. Laxman, for one, would have been perplexed.

2014: fitness issues

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.

Dhoni in World Cup 2015

MS Dhoni with Ravi Shastri during a training session in Melbourne, Picture courtesy: India Today

India Today

Vikrant Gupta and Kunal Pradhan

March 26, 2015

Marred by scandal and a spate of on-field reverses, India's one-day captain managed to convert a struggling team into World Cup contenders, but couldn't take them all the way

What India's one-day captain has achieved by taking his team from 85 days of trauma Down Under-where they did not win a single match in any format-to the semi-finals of the World Cup with an unbeaten record in the tournament until their eventual demise, has been nothing short of sensational.

It may well be his last World Cup, and perhaps among his last few games as India's indomitable skipper, but Dhoni has left an indelible mark on India's one-day game, setting benchmark that all future and past captains will be judged by.

So how did Dhoni, battered on the field and troubled off it following the Mudgal Commission's damning report into betting and match-fixing involving his IPL team, Chennai Super Kings, get his groove back? Was his redemption song written by the strokes of some magic pen, or was it a carefully crafted master plan.

Sources in the Indian team point to the birth of his daughter, Ziva, barely 10 days before the World Cup, as the most significant moment in the Dhoni and Team India revival story. That morning, his colleagues had expected Dhoni to tell them that he would make a quick trip back home to cradle his daughter in his arms. Instead, Dhoni walked in and said he would stay in Australia to help sort out the mess they were all in. The leader had risen. Suddenly, the goal was clear.

"We knew the results couldn't get possibly any worse once the World Cup began, but the team was hesitant, uncertain; almost petrified," a dressing-room insider confesses. "But when Dhoni decided that even his greatest personal happiness couldn't come in the way of going all out in the World Cup, the pieces started falling into place. Something changed that day."

The road to cricketing recovery had apparently been charted towards the end of the four-Test series, which India lost 2-0. Although the results in the tri-series against Australia and England were even poorer, Dhoni didn't panic. Coach Duncan Fletcher began working on the batting stance of most batsmen, including the in-form Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane. They now stand on these pitches with their legs further apart, the bat tapping midway between their stretched feet for better balance, rather than the conventional upright stance with the bat behind the right foot. Team Director Ravi Shastri, never shy of using his bombastic turn of phrase, used his equation with bowling coach Bharat Arun, who had played U19 cricket and a couple of Tests with Shastri, to work with him on the weaknesses of the Indian pacers during the Tests and ODIs.

During these technical adjustments, Dhoni just let them be. But critical changes in mindset began when the skipper took the fast bowlers to a boot camp 200 km from Adelaide after the team failed to make the final of the tri-series. There, he asked them to set new goals for themselves before the World Cup. Over severe brainstorming sessions, it was concluded that the fast bowlers were either bowling too short or too full. In the next few days, they began concentrating on hitting a three-quarter length-first at a moderate pace and then faster, until they were all clocking upwards of 140 kilometres per hour with relative ease. Dhoni then worked with them on the strengths and weaknesses of rival batsmen, and a few were picked from every team as potential targets for surprise short-pitch deliveries.

The skipper had, meanwhile, asked Ravichandran Ashwin to try bowling slower through the air and Shastri's experience as a spinner helped matters further. Shastri took Ashwin to former Australian off-spinner Bruce Yardley, who suggested he should get more revolutions on the ball to be successful in these conditions. Soon, the results began to show-first in the nets and then in the early matches of the Word Cup. The three main fast bowlers, Mohammad Shami, Umesh Yadav and Mohit Sharma, grabbed 48 wickets between them in the tournament, and Ashwin added 13 more while giving away a fairly economical 4.28 runs per over considering how high-scoring the tournament has been.

"I never expected India to shift gears so well and so soon. Dhoni is a very clever captain and works the magic on his players in ICC tournaments. He is like Harry Potter," former England skipper Michael Vaughan said in Sydney.

His former teammate Kevin Pietersen concurred that most of Team India's transformation was Dhoni's doing. "He's willing to wait for opportunities and set up the kill. He did the right thing by playing five specialist bowlers, and he had the confidence to call them to bowl at any given stage," Pietersen, in Australia as a commentator, told india today. Sourav Ganguly, shrewd and successful, and the captain whose spirit of never giving up Dhoni seems to have imbibed, rates Dhoni as a better leader in one-day internationals than he was. "He has often been off-the-ball in Test matches, but in the shorter format, Dhoni is always magnetic," Ganguly says. "Playing Australia-even losing to them all through the summer-helped the Indians become tougher. Dhoni was intelligent because he held on to the group and ensured they reflected on those defeats and learnt from them. Giving up Test captaincy gave him fresh oxygen in the World Cup."

It hasn't been easy though. After former BCCI chief N.Srinivasan's removal following the Mudgal Commission report, in which Dhoni allegedly did not give a clear account of the events, he had gone into a shell. His links with Srinivasan ran deep, both through the IPL and through his company India Cements, in which Dhoni is a vice-president. So the assumption that Dhoni may have benefitted from the relationship was not entirely unfounded, and there are several questions that he still needs to answer to clear the air on that front. Under pressure, he not only cut himself off from India's travelling media, it seemed he almost began resenting their interest in the team's affairs.

With the World Cup just around the corner, it was evident that his performance in Test cricket was waning. Sensing that the selectors, and the team management now under the boisterous Shastri, wanted a fresh approach that he could not provide, Dhoni suddenly retired from the format with the series lost but the Sydney Test still to be played.

It was assumed that it was the end of the road for Dhoni once Virat Kohli had been fast-tracked into the hot seat. However, it is the chemistry between the two that served the team well once the World Cup began. Pitched as rivals by those outside the inner circle, Dhoni and Kohli have gone out of their way to reach out to each other during this tournament. They have often been seen walking down the streets, going for meals together, and even buying video game consoles before the game against West Indies in Perth on March 6. Now the Test captain, Kohli threw his weight behind Dhoni as the undisputed leader in this tournament.

As a captain, as a player, and as a man, Dhoni has always been an enigma. Clearly disinterested in Test cricket in the latter half of his career, India kept losing one overseas series after another under him. But in the one-day format, and particularly in big ICC tournaments, Dhoni's love for silverware continues to convert him into a man possessed. Though he never lets his emotions show on his face, India won the 2013 Champions Trophy and played in the final of the 2014 World T20. His sweetest moment, of course, was that World Cup final night at the Wankhede in 2011. "He has big-match temperament," says former England skipper Nasser Hussain. "He does a wonderful job of not letting the team lose focus when it matters the most."

In 2015 too Dhoni got India fairly close against all odds. But some things are not meant to be. Even for the man with the Midas touch.

Anecdotes

Dhoni’s mane problem

MS Dhoni: The tale of Indian captain's 'Manly Beauty Parlour' India Today February 9, 2015 |

"MSD, The Man, The Leader", a biography by veteran journalist Biswadeep Ghosh, narrates the hairy tale of Dhoni, who later became client of a well-known Beauty Clinic - Kaya, was a regular visitor to the 'Manly Beauty Parlour' and the book quotes an employee of the shop while authenticating it's claim.

"Woh toh ab bade aadmi ho gaye hain (He has become famous now)," Guddu, a hair-cutter of the salon is quoted by 'The Telegraph'.

Dhoni once had to hide inside the Kaya beauty clinic in Ranchi when he went to get his hair cut in the afternoon and the word spread around that the Indian captain was in the shop.

The book says that the shutters had to be closed and crowd of thousands had to be managed by the local police to take Dhoni out of the beauty clinic in the evening.

A keeper of wickets

M. S. Dhoni always took back a stump after winning a match.

When questioned about it in an interview to the BCCI.tv, Dhoni said: “That’s my retirement plan. The good thing is that I do collect a lot of stumps but the bad one is I don’t put a mark as to which match they were from. So, after I retire I’ll watch the videos of all my matches, look closely at the sponsors logos on the stumps and figure out which match a stump belongs to. It will be my post-cricket pastime!” Abhilash Mankar, Abhilash Mankar

Statistics

As on 30 Dec 2014

Batting and fielding averages

Bowling statistics

Boria Majumdar: 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.

…delivered with arrogance?

A departure delivered with supreme arrogance Siddharth Saxena The Times of India Dec 31 2014

What immense service would you [Dhoni] be doing your struggling team and to the sport back home, when you join the team [in Australia in Dec 2014] one Test late, lose the second inside four days after posting a 400 plus score in the first innings and then announce your retirement via that wonderfully fool proof instrument of the official press release. Not a word given, not one taken.

Dhoni's action is not one born out of those latter-day post-liberalisation norms that scoff at all tradition. It was delivered with supreme arrogance for everybody involved -the fans, his teammates, even if we least deserve it, the media and the sport itself. It is the same arrogance that has been symptomatic of the Dhoni-Srinivasan era and its hold over the game. To say Dhoni's ways have been his own and this was no different, is belittling the efforts of the other men in his team. If you want to do things your way and don't expect your actions to affect your mates, don't play a team sport, play tennis instead.

His casual brushing aside of the alleged Virat Kohli-Shikhar Dhawan spat only reinforced the idea how he was firmly in command. It was the typical Dhoni play of words that has usually had the touring media party eating out of his hands.

Dhoni will be credited as the man under whom India reached No. 1 in Tests, but with the free-fall that followed, he will also be identified as someone who not only failed to halt it, but casually walked away midway . One Test still to go would probably be the greatest number finally attached to his name. [As a graphic on this page shows, 61% of those who responded to The Times of India’s poll felt that Dhoni should have completed the then ongoing Test series in Australia]

Relationships

Raai Laxmi

Raai Laxmi with Dhoni. Photo perhaps by Prathamesh Bandekar

The Times of India

According to a report, Tamil actress Raai Laxmi (formerly Lakshmi Rai) 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.