Skip to main content

The silent achiever

Amidst all the hoopla around Tendulkar's twenty years, Dravid's return to form, Sehwag's monstrous scores and India's ascent to #1 in the rankings, one man has been quietly forgotten. Mahendra Singh Dhoni has now become (statistically) the best Indian wicket-keeper batsman of all time in Test matches with more hundreds (3) than anyone else and with a better dismissals/innings rate than all Indian keepers with 50+ dismissals. He also has the highest ODI batting average amongst all Indian batsmen (who've played 20+ games), at a strike rate of just under 90. And of course he led India to its only World Cup after the seminal '83 win though it must be said that he hasn't done justice to himself in T20Is yet.

Add to that the fact that he's now captained India to Test series wins against Aus, Eng, and SL plus a drawn series against SA at home and their first overseas win in NZ in 30 years and you have a modern Indian great in the making. Funnily enough he seems to be taken for granted these days and foreign teams and fans now seem to appreciate him more than his own countrymen appear to do. Such is the lot of the Indian cricketing superstar :-)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

When reactions lack proportion

There's been much brouhaha over India's rapid descent into one-sided football scorelines and becoming what some would term "the world's worst overseas team". And while there's some logic to the cries for wholesale changes ,  revamping the team , and attitude problems , much of it is over the top. About the only two sensible pieces I have read recently are by Ganguly and Siddhartha Vaidyanathan questioning the lack of spirit and fight shown by the team. What's most surprising to me is that some people seem to think that the team (which was ranked #1 till recently and won the World Cup less than a year back) is suddenly a pile of dung. This when there are still several pieces of information (numbers of course) that have either been ignored or not analysed clearly at all. So here's an attempt to balance the books a little. Consider the following - 1) India's overseas record in 5 year segments roughly over the last two decades is as below: 199
Post a Comment
Read more

Kohli's team on the way to greatness?

Growing up (from a cricket watching perspective) in the 1990s, I am terribly unused to Test cricket being the format in which the Indian team is most successful and looking like potential world-beaters. Still early days, but this is exactly the way things seem headed currently for Kohli and his men. Since Jan 2015 (when Kohli took over as full time captain), India's record reads: P 21, W 14, L 1, D 6. The absurd W/L ratio will of course not last and many critics will point to the fact that most of the victories have come at home. Teams can however only overcome the opposition they are faced with and so far India have ticked off the overseas boxes they have been faced with (in Sri Lanka and the West Indies). And at home they have been utterly dominant, destroying everyone they've met. But most hearteningly, it's the way they have battled back from adversity that builds the most promise for the future. Too often in even the recent past (let alone the 1990s), Indian teams
Post a Comment
Read more

Old dog, new tricks?

After Virat Kohli's stupendously successful start as India captain (admittedly in a different format), the cries for Dhoni to be replaced as captain for the shorter formats will undoubtedly renew again. And while Kohli might be ready to take over, I think India still have a lot to gain from Dhoni the batsman and captain at the Champions Trophy in England next year. Aside from the fact that we are not exactly rolling in good new limited overs keeper-batsmen and couldn't therefore find an adequate replacement at short notice, Dhoni has looked fitter and fresher since he gave up Test cricket. He has also, in a distinct departure from the recent past, looked keen to get stuck into situations tactically and work out ways to win with newer players. The Zimbabwe tour was a pretty light weight test but it definitely started there and its carried on into the current series against New Zealand. Most hearteningly, he has not been stubborn about his own waning skills as a batsman and
Post a Comment
Read more