Two World Cups, Champions Trophy Glory and guiding India to the summit of the Test rankings are few highlights of MS Dhoni’s magnificent career. Known as the ‘Captain Cool’, MS Dhoni has always been known for his leading skills and his success as a captain. But what about, MS Dhoni – The batsman?
There was always hope whenever India gets into a precarious situation. He has come into bat in several such situations – to name a few: 29/5 against Pakistan, 25/4 against England, 16/5 against Sri Lanka, and finished off the innings well when India wasn’t destined to finish with a good scored on the board. Yes, we all believed that he will save our innings, but was that the only thing he was capable of? No. If there is one underrated ability of MS Dhoni, it has got to be his batting. Take a look at his record in the visualization below.
He may not play in the most elegant manner like many others and may not possess all the shots in the cricketing books. But his ability to deploy his strengths and play according to the situation has separated him from the rest. 2009 was a brilliant year for MS Dhoni. He came in at No.5 and smacked two centuries and four half-centuries. Though the number of runs that he scored wasn’t the same since that, his contribution to the team was always crucial. He scored 2581 runs in the last five years of his ODI career compared to 5114 runs he scored in his first five years. If this isn’t a testament to letting go of your position to help the team, I wonder what is!
Known as an explosive batsman, MS Dhoni was expected to be the best batsman. But, being the skipper he is, he sacrificed his position for the youngsters and yet he scored 1617 runs, becoming the first middle-order batsman to score over 1000 runs. His Strike Rate might be a bit on the lower side, but he has scored 48% of his runs in boundaries, which is staggering!
To conclude, MS Dhoni has been one of the most successful batsman India has produced. When one talks about runs, the mind shifts to the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Saurav Ganguly and Virat Kohli. It is high time that we consider putting MS Dhoni in the runs bracket as well!
Good one