M.S Dhoni: India's most successful wicketkeeper

Becoming India's most successful wicket-keeper

Records never seem to say no to Indian Captain M.S Dhoni, who achieved yet another feat on the third day of the test match against West Indies at the Kotla grounds. As Dhoni stumped West Indies’ batsman Kraigg Brathwaite off Pragyan Ojha, he took his 199th dismissal in test cricket. The feat made him cross former India keeper Syed Kirmani’s feat of 198 dismissals. It might be remembered that Kirmani was the most successful of all Indian keepers till now, keeping his record of 198 dismissals for nearly three decades, and also being the first Indian wicketkeeper to take 100 test wicket-keeping dismissals.

Dhoni though did not stop at 199 dismissals, and took a catch off Marlon Samuels before the day ended. Thus he finished the day with 200 dismissals, the first Indian wicketkeeper to have ever achieved the feat. By achieving this first, Dhoni has become the 13th best wicketkeeper in the history of cricket, with 200 dismissals to date. The table of most dismissals is headed by MV Boucher who has 521 dismissals to his name in 139 matches. A. Gilchrist (416 dismissals), IA Healy (395 dismissals) follow him. M.S. Dhoni has quite a fair chance of getting right up there, with 200 dismissals in just 62 matches till date being an impressive record.

Also, Dhoni is now ninth in the list when the most number of stumpings by a test wicket-keeper is taken into account. WAS Oldfield of Australia leads the charts with 52 stumping in 54 matches. Dhoni has now 26 dismissals to his credit in 62 matches.

Though Dhoni’s gloves came under scrutiny in the recent past in the tour of England, there remains no doubt that he still remains the best keeper for India and one of the best in the World. Even during that tour, selection committee member and former stumper had backed Dhoni by saying he was still the best for India. More had said, during an interview when asked about Dhoni’s keeping:

“If a batsman can have a bad series, why can’t a keeper? It happened to me once during a Lord’s Test match where I dropped England’s Graham Gooch and he went on to score some big runs. Dhoni usually doesn’t miss much. His percentage of catching and stumping is really high. He may have dropped a few balls but is easily the best wicket-keeper in the country.”

It might be recalled Kiran More was the one who spotted Dhoni in the first place during a Duleep Trophy final match between East and North Zone in Mohali. More found Dhoni’s keeping and batting so impressive that he later sent him to India-A’s tour of Zimbabwe where he performed well too thereby earning him his debut in International Cricket soon. No matter what the debacle, the selectors have kept their faith on Dhoni till now and he was one of the first captain to have even taken ‘rest’ according to his own will, with the reason that he got tired by playing too much cricket. No other captain of India has had the courage to do that ever.

Dhoni has come a long way from his initial days, when he was regarded as a very flamboyant batsman who went after the bowlers whenever he could. Captaincy seems to have changed him and turned him into the coolest person in the Indian cricket team, after having guided the team to two World cup victories (one T20 World Cup and 2011 ODI World Cup). He has also been able to produce astounding results for the team taking the team to unbelievable heights. Dhoni’s agility, keeping calm under extreme pressure and ability to bounce back from difficult situation makes him the ideal captain for the team. It is an added bonus that this calm head is the custodian of gloves in the team. There is no doubt that a lot more is to follow from his glove work as well as his batting prowess in the near future.