Clearing the myths about MS Dhoni

2) There are some Indians who feel that his wicket-keeping is average and to be fair, he did have problems with his keeping in England where the ball moved prodigiously after passing the batsman.

Others say that he is not as technically correct as Mongia, Kirmani and Engineer. That is true, but he is solid and dependable and rarely drops a catch. A keeper need not be flamboyant but needs to latch on every opportunity.

Without any doubt, he’s got one of the fastest pair of hands behind the wicket in the world today and is one of the quickest keeper when it comes to affecting stumpings.

3) The last criticism and perhaps the one with the most merit, is his captaincy, especially in overseas conditions.

He was the captain in both the disastrous overseas tours of England and Australia and was in control of the team in 7 of the 8 consecutive Tests that India lost, but the fact remains that it was a collective failure wherein the team didn’t perform as a unit due to the shambolic performance of both the batsmen and bowlers.

While considering his losses, it must also be noted that he has the record of the most Test wins as skipper of India, 24(3 more than Ganguly) and has done it in 2 fewer Tests. Again, it is the team effort which won them the matches, Dhoni too contributed.

The enormity of his task can be gauged by the fact that after his current record of 47 matches played as a wicket-keeper captain, the 2nd highest number of Tests in which a wicketkeeper has led his country is 18 by FCM Alexander back in 1958-60.

Even overseas he has the 2nd most wins as captain along with Rahul Dravid (5) and behind Sourav Ganguly who has 11 to his name. But when wins against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are excluded, he is just 1 Test win behind Ganguly.

Enough of these comparisons. Let us salute a genius called Mahendra Singh Dhoni.