Captain Cool, finisher par excellence, electrifying glovesman; Dhoni's legend continues to mesmerise

We know him as the one of the best captains that India has ever produced. There are no ifs and buts about it. Now, adding another feather to his cap, MS Dhoni goes past Md Azharuddin’s ODI runs to become fourth highest run getter in this format of the game. 

Only Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar are ahead of him. Looking back, I think it is amazing record to possess. Azhar was a pure batsman whereas MSD is a wicketkeeper batsman. Apart from his services as skipper of the team and as wicketkeeper, he has reached this far. He is almost 392 runs short of scoring 10,000 runs in this format of the game. 

No doubt, it is commendable effort and it qualifies him to be one of the greatest the game has ever produced. However, there is another aspect of his career which actually makes this record look even better. And, that is playing T20s and IPLs. If we see the players who are now ahead of him – Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid, they all were players who played a little of T20s and IPLs. 

Considering that Dhoni is a T20 and IPL legend as well, I wonder what would have been his score if he had not played these games. By concrete stats, he has another 3586 runs in T20s and IPLs put together. If I add these runs to his ODI aggregate, then he safely goes past Sourav Ganguly’s run aggregate of 11,221.

This stat is achieved by adding his present aggregate of 9608 runs in ODIs to 3586 runs in T20s and IPLs. By adding all these, he has aggregate of 13,194. And it would have been only behind the Sachin Tendulkar’s aggregate of 18,426. His performance is a testimony that he is a legend in limited over games. 

In a time, when we have become so fierce in writing someone off, mere stats reveal a fact which would have been safely overlooked by many. It is sad that despite all these great performances, we still debate whether he is fit enough to be in the team. At 36 years of age, he easily clears ‘Yo-Yo endurance test’ (a physical stamina test to check fitness of players).

But, his place was not certain in the recent series against Sri Lanka. Many eyebrows were raised when he was selected in the team. And, look where he is. Championing chases in two of the ODIs against the islanders, he saved disgrace for Indian team.

Question is where you would buy a legend like him. I brought stats to mock the popular sentiment that he is no more a champion that he once used to be. These claims are nothing but a JOKE. Anyone can look into these stats to understand the juggernaut called Mahendra Singh Dhoni!!