Ms Dhoni: One of the greatest 

On April 2, 2011, India faced Sri Lanka in the World Cup finals in Wankhede stadium. India was in a spot of bother at 114/3, in walked Dhoni ahead of Yuvraj Singh much to the surprise of the everyone who was watching the finals. Dhoni till that point was not in best of form with the bat, he averaged 30 in seven innings before the finals. That day Dhoni showed us all that every day is a new day the past form doesn't count the only thing that counts is how you play on that particular day. Dhoni was on strike with India needing 4 runs off 11 deliveries and then this happened: Dhoniiiii finishes off in style. A magnificent strike into the crowd. India lifts the World Cup after 28 years. The party's started in the dressing room. And it’s an Indian captain, who’s been absolutely magnificent, in the night of the final.’ (the voice of Ravi Shastri)

A LOOK BACK :

* Dhoni's cricketing career started in a club called as Commando cricket club in 1995. He became a regular wicketkeeper for the club team.

*In 1998 Dhoni played his first professional cricket game for the Central Coal Fields Limited (CCL) team. He was selected by Deval Sahay, who was the Ranchi District Cricket President at that time.

*In 1998-1999 he played for Bihar U-19 team and scored 176 runs in 5 matches.

*In 1999-2000 Bihar U-19 qualified for the finals and lost to Punjab U-19 in the finals. Based on Dhoni's performance he made it through the East zone U-19 team for the CK Nayudu trophy

*Dhoni made his Ranji Trophy debut in 1999-2000 at the age of eighteen.

*Dhoni became a Travelling Ticket Examiner (TTE) at Kharagpur Railway Station in 2001.

*Dhoni was a part of the India A side that toured Zimbabwe and Kenya in the 2003-04. He scored 362 runs in the tri-series involving Kenya, India A, Pakistan A. He won the Man of the Series too.

*Dhoni made his ODI debut on 23rd December 2004 against Bangladesh.

*Dhoni's first international catch came on 26th December 2004, the batsman being Nafees Iqbal. Dhoni made his first stumping on 27th December 2006 against Bangladesh off Tendulkar bowling and the batsman was Rajin Saleh. Dhoni's first six came against Bangladesh on 27th December 2006.

*Dhoni's first century came against Pakistan on 5th April 2005. He scored 148 off 123 deliveries. On 31st October 2005, he smashed 183* against Sri Lanka in Jaipur.

*Dhoni made his test debut on 2nd December 2005 against Sri Lanka. In the year 2007, he was made the captain of the national side and helped India win the 2007 t20 world cup.

*On December 2009 India became world number one in test match cricket under Dhoni's captaincy. On April 2nd 2011, Dhoni's Unbeaten knock of 91 along with Gambhir's 97 helped India lift the world cup.

*On 22nd February 2013 Dhoni became the only Indian wicketkeeper to score a double ton in test match cricket. Dhoni and co lifted the Champions Trophy in England on June 3rd, 2013.

*In the year 2008 and 2009 Dhoni won the ODI player of the year. Dhoni was named the captain and wicketkeeper of the 2010 ICC test team. In 2011 he won the Spirit of the Cricket award. In 2013 Dhoni won the LG's People's Choice Award. He was named the captain and wicketkeeper of 2013,2012,2011 ICC ODI team. In 2011 he was awarded the CNN-IBN Indian of the year in sports.

*Dhoni received Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award in 2007, He was awarded Padma Shri in 2009. In 2018 Dhoni was awarded Padma Bhushan.

THE FAST HANDS:

First One Day International Match: India Vs South Africa

Dhoni has always been an unorthodox wicketkeeper and has never been a classical wicketkeeper, even being unorthodox and being an out of box keeper he has been successful. His unorthodox way of keeping along with the innovations that he brought into the field of keeping made him the third-best wicketkeeper in terms of dismissals in all the formats with 788 dismissals and counting, he is just behind Adam Gilchrist(905 dismissals), and Mark Boucher( 999 dismissals).

Dhoni is a smart, clever thinking keeper, he has lightning-quick hands and whips the bails off in a flash. Due to all these factors, Dhoni has the most number of stumpings with 178 stumpings across all the formats. He is also the first wicketkeeper with 100+ stumpings in ODI cricket.

The innovations that he has brought in keeping has been unreal and something makes you think is this guy(Dhoni) human or what? One such incident is when Dhoni just guided the throw from fine leg to get Ross Taylor run not. The other incident occurred during IPL 2016 when Mann Vohra tries to guide the ball to the third man region and Dhoni will lift his right leg and will block the ball from getting past.

Dhoni is not a dynamic and aerobic keeper like Adam Gilchrist, Kumar Sangakkara who can dive into thin air to catch a traveling ball, but when it comes to keeping up to the stumps there is no one in this universe who could be better than Dhoni.

What makes Dhoni faster than other keepers when it comes to stumpings?

While standing up to the stumps generally keepers tend to collect and move in the direction of the ball in order to reduce the impact of the delivery and to collect it cleanly, then they have to change the direction of their hands in order to make a stumping whereas Dhoni literally moves his hands towards the ball, collects it and flicks his wrist or moves his wrist backwards in order to reduce the impact of the delivery and then whips the bails off without the need of changing the direction, this reduces a lot of time and makes him faster than everyone.

CAPTAINCY:

Winning Captain's Press Conference - 2011 ICC World Cup

After Dravid stepping down as captain no one expected Dhoni to be the next captain and with senior players opting out of the inaugural t20 World Cup, no one expected India to be successful in the tournament but Dhoni and Co clinched the title and surprised everyone. Dhoni was never expected to be a successful captain when he was given the captaincy but eventually, Dhoni became the only captain to win all the ICC trophies (ICC t20 World Cup 2007, ICC World Cup 2011, ICC Champions Trophy 2013) and to hold on to the test mace as well.

Dhoni ended up captaining 331 matches for India across formats which is most by any captain

Dhoni has a winning percentage of 53.78. India won 110 matches in ODI's under Dhoni's captaincy which the second most number wins for a captain (Ricky Pointing has 165 wins in ODI's as captain). Dhoni has the most number T20 wins as captain.

Dhoni has captained India in 94 series across formats in which India has won 46 series. Under Dhoni's captaincy India won 12 test series which is most under any Indian captain and in ODI's India won 24 series under Dhoni's captaincy which is also the most by any Indian captain.

Dhoni is the only captain to win 3 IPL titles and two t20 champions league titles for CSK. Dhoni has captained a combined 159 matches for CSK and Rising Pune Super Giants which is most by any captain. Under Dhoni's captaincy, his team has won 94 games out of the 159 games in IPL.

Dhoni as a captain has always been surprising. Some of the best moments in Dhoni's captaincy are 1. Giving the last over to Joginder Sharma in World Cup t20 2007 finals against Pakistan 2. Giving the ball to Ishant Sharma to bowl the 18th over in the Champions trophy finals 2013 instead of Umesh Yadav (who had figures of 2-0-10-1) and Bhuvaneshwar Kumar ( who had figures of 3-0-19-0).3. Promoting himself ahead of Yuvraj Singh in the World Cup 2011 Finals at Wankhede stadium in Mumbai.

Dhoni gave Rohit a second chance to open the batting against England in 2013 at Mohali and that innings of 83 made him a regular opener in the side. After that match-winning innings when he was asked about the mastermind behind sending him to open the batting Rohit said the following: He (Dhoni) just came up to me and said ‘I want you to open the innings as I am confident that you will do well. Since you can play both cut and pull shot well, you have the qualities to succeed as an opener’,” Rohit said.

“He told me that I shouldn’t be scared of failures or get upset by criticism. He was looking at the bigger picture as the Champions Trophy was scheduled in England that year,” said Rohit, the only player in world cricket with two double hundreds in ODIs. According to Rohit, Dhoni’s reading of a player’s ability is peerless.

The qualities like resource management, player selection, quick prediction of conditions, reading player's ability etc., makes him the greatest captain in the history.

THE FINISHER:

Whenever we hear the word finisher the two names that strike us are MS Dhoni and Michael Bevan. Both these players played in two different eras. Bevan averages 86.25 in the successful run chases in ODI's for Australia whereas Dhoni averages 102.88 in successful run chases in ODI's for India. Dhoni has a career strike of 88.13 whereas Bevan had a strike rate of 74.16. Dhoni has the highest number of not-outs in successful chases (44 and counting). 19 times Dhoni has finished an innings off with four or six in ODI's, 12 of them were sixes and 7 were fours.

India was involved in 14 tournament finals since 2004 (tournament involving 3 or more teams) in which India batted second 8 times and managed to win 3 times, in those 3 successful chases Dhoni has never been dismissed and has scored 151 runs with the highest score of 91* which came in the world cup finals against Sri Lanka in 2011. Dhoni has been involved in 8 successful run chases in the world cup for India, in which he has batted in 6 innings and was dismissed only twice and averages 140.6

Dhoni in last 10 overs( overs after 40) in his ODI career averages 40.5 and strikes at 128.7, he has scored over 3500 runs in the last ten overs in ODI's. Dhoni in successful chases in t20's ( including IPL, champions league) has an average of 52.34 which is 13 more than his career average( career average 39.3) and he strikes at 137 in successful chases. Dhoni is the only batsman to score more than 10,000 runs in ODI's at an average more than 50. He has scored his majority of runs while batting at number 5 or below( 7,725 runs).

What makes Dhoni the best finisher?

Dhoni's ability to read the situation, his ability to read the resources left for the opposition and act accordingly and his ability to remain calm and cool in pressure situations makes him the best finisher in the world. Dhoni's ability to take a match down to the last over and he has the ability to make it into a one on one battle between himself and the bowler and mostly winning those battles to take his side home makes him the best finisher.

DHONI'S BAD PATCH:

Since the 2015 world cup Dhoni has been criticised for starting slowly in the early part of his innings especially in chases. Dhoni loves to take it deep and smash at the end to take his team home which has backfired in recent times. The latest match was against West Indies in Antigua, India was chasing a modest target of 190 and fell short by 12 runs. Dhoni scored the second slowest half-century by an Indian in ODI's(108 balls). Dhoni played 70 balls in 114 balls that he played, he eventually fell to Kesrick Williams in the 49th over. Since 2014 in run chases in ODI's his average dipped to 38.5 and his strike rate too dropped down to 78, his dot ball percentage increased from 50.8 % to 51.2%, runs in 1's,2's,3's per 100 balls dipped from 48.56 to 47.54, his runs boundaries per 100 balls also dipped from 34.03 to 30.47.

Dhoni has struggled against spin in recent times. Dhoni loves to come down the track to spinners but spinners have evolved and have targeted his body, high paced deliveries into his body do not let Dhoni free his arms and this made Dhoni stuck in the middle. Since 2015 Dhoni has not scored more than 4 runs per over against spinners in ODI's. Since 2015 there has been an increase in the number of spinners ( especially leg-spinners) so Dhoni eventually has to face a lot of spinners at the start of his innings so this made him start slow in recent times. Dhoni was dismissed 6 times and in which he was dismissed four times by leg-spinners in the recently concluded IPL.

Dhoni in the last 12 months in ODI's has the lowest strike rate as a wicketkeeper-batsman when compared with other wicketkeeper-batsmen like Jos Butler, Quinton de Kock, Brendon Taylor, Dhoni strikes at 79.36. Since 2015 Dhoni has the lowest strike rate at number 6 and he has been able to stay in the crease longer when compared to the other number 6 batsmen who have scored at least 300 runs at number 6 in ODI's since May 2015.

DHONI 3.0:

For the past 12 months Is the Finisher finished? was the question that was put forward at Dhoni by many people either in social media or in press conferences. The most awaited answer from Dhoni came in the IPL 2018 in which Dhoni smashed 455 runs at an average of 75.83 and had a strike rate of 150.66. In IPL 2018 Dhoni muscled 30 sixes and he did what is he does the best finishing a match off with a six, twice Dhoni finished a match off with a six in the IPL 2018

What changed things for Dhoni in the IPL 2018?

Out of the 15 innings that Dhoni in the IPL 2018 on fourteen occasions he batted at number four and five. In those fourteen occasions, he scored 439 runs at an average of 73.16 and had a strike rate of 148.8. Promoting himself up the order has changed things for Dhoni in the recently concluded IPL.

Author's Envision:

In ODI's since May 2015 Dhoni averaged highest while batting at number four and number five, he averages 46.11 and 46.06 at number 4 and number 5 respectively. He has played 17 innings at number five since May 2015 and has a strike rate of 88.13 which is equal to his career strike rate. With the World Cup, less than a year away and India struggling to solve it's middle order woes in ODI's, promoting Dhoni to number 4 or 5 will fix their middle order woes. Dhoni likes to get the scorecard moving by nudging the singles and twos, he is a busy player at the crease, he runs hard between the wickets and keeps the scorecard ticking. Number 5 will be ideal for him because since May 2015 in the 17 innings whenever he had batted at number 5 the average over at which he came to the crease was around 26 this gives him the much important time to settle down and unleash himself in the last 10 overs. Dhoni if promoted to number four or five will provide some much important solidity that India is looking for if their top three fails.

MS Dhoni = Ricky Pointing+ Michael Bevan+ Adam Gilchrist, this indicates that Dhoni has the captaincy skills like Ricky Pointer, the finishing ability like Bevan and wicket keeping skills like Gilchrist. So Let's hope that the best finisher in the planet will have a great finish to his career.