Dhoni and contemporary wicketkeepers

[carnish]

Gilchrist was no wy close to Boucher in terms of keeping skills.

still much better than dhoni.... i said those two were better than dhoni and not equivalent to each other in keeping skills only i guess after boucher the last guy i remember is dave williams from west indies.... though he was a midget(real midget), the skills he displayed were exceptional... one of the best behind the stumps..

[vamos_rafa]

still much better than dhoni.... i said those two were better than dhoni and not equivalent to each other in keeping skills only i guess after boucher the last guy i remember is dave williams from west indies.... though he was a midget(real midget), the skills he displayed were exceptional... one of the best behind the stumps..

Well, there have been many with excellent keeping skills. David Williams was one for sure. I rated Prassana Jayawardene's skills highly as well.

[ganeshran]

still much better than dhoni.... i said those two were better than dhoni and not equivalent to each other in keeping skills only i guess after boucher the last guy i remember is dave williams from west indies.... though he was a midget(real midget), the skills he displayed were exceptional... one of the best behind the stumps..

:hysterical::hysterical: He just looked good because of his acrobatic skills.

[carnish]

:hysterical::hysterical: He just looked good because of his acrobatic skills.

he had to rely on his acrobatics because otherwise the balls even a little wide he wouldnot have reached and thats where his talent was cause he never let his small height make him drop his performances and thus he never had to give excuses for his height

[BeautifulGame]

Well' date=' there have been many with excellent keeping skills. David Williams was one for sure. I rated Prassana Jayawardene's skills highly as well.[/quote'] Well when last time India played Sri Lanka Dhoni looked a far better wicket keeper than P Jayawardne.

[BeautifulGame]

On keeping skills, Dhoni would rank around 4th in a sample of 8 test playing nations - so yeah, it makes him an average keeper.

Really who are those keepers who looked far more assured than Dhoni in all conditions? Only one i can think of for certain is Boucher and even then he has hardly kept for a quality spinner in his career to say he is a great keeper.

[BeautifulGame]

Gilchrist was no wy close to Boucher in terms of keeping skills.

Gilly is a much more or rather i would much more proven keeper than Boucher. Gilly had to keep wickets to the likes of Warne and Macgill quality spinners whereas boucher never has kept wicket to a quality keeper. For a keeper growing up in SA or Aus its easy to keep for fast bowlers.Their skill sets are really tested when keeping to quality spinners in turning pitches.Gilly was very good in that aspect whereas Boucher was never tested in that regard. So its easy for Boucher to look better than Gilly with SA's one dimentional attack.

[vvvslaxman]

DHONI''s batting has certain limitations. He can easily hide them in Odis. In tests he can't do that. He has no stage fright. I'll give him that. Just that he needs to spend sometime domestic first class cricket to learn the art of building a test innings.

[Trichromatic]

Dhoni wasn't best batsman even in Jharkhand team. I might be wrong though.

[saneindian]

Dhoni wasn't best batsman even in Jharkhand team. I might be wrong though.

IIRC MSD was an opener during his Jharkhand and East Zone days.

[Late Cut]

I keep hearing about Dhoni's poor series in England over and over; interesting considering that such posts are by people with screennames like "vvslaxman" etc. Wonder how long VVS has to spend in the domestic league for his pathetic performance in England. :giggle:

[Aaku]

I keep hearing about Dhoni's poor series in England over and over; interesting considering that such posts are by people with screennames like "vvslaxman" etc. Wonder how long VVS has to spend in the domestic league for his pathetic performance in England. :giggle:

[Precambrian]

Gilly is a much more or rather i would much more proven keeper than Boucher. Gilly had to keep wickets to the likes of Warne and Macgill quality spinners whereas boucher never has kept wicket to a quality keeper. For a keeper growing up in SA or Aus its easy to keep for fast bowlers.Their skill sets are really tested when keeping to quality spinners in turning pitches.Gilly was very good in that aspect whereas Boucher was never tested in that regard. So its easy for Boucher to look better than Gilly with SA's one dimentional attack.

Gilly rarely had to keep to Warne on subcontinent wickets where nobody has a clue as to how much it would bounce or not, or turn. Not denying he wasn't world class, he truly was, but we have seen how touring wicketkeepers struggle in India in the past. Dhoni, for all his supposed fallacies, has not had a "terrible" series so to speak. Look at Prasanna Jayawardene, he was hailed as the best not long back. Then SL toured India.

[BeautifulGame]

Gilly rarely had to keep to Warne on subcontinent wickets where nobody has a clue as to how much it would bounce or not, or turn. Not denying he wasn't world class, he truly was, but we have seen how touring wicketkeepers struggle in India in the past. Dhoni, for all his supposed fallacies, has not had a "terrible" series so to speak. Look at Prasanna Jayawardene, he was hailed as the best not long back. Then SL toured India.

Gilly kept to warne in India in both 2001 and 2004 series.He kept to warne in the 2004 tour of Sri Lanka when all three tests were played on turners. Also wickets like Sydney and Melboure on the 4th and 5th days are usually big turners then.

[Precambrian]

Gilly kept to warne in India in both 2001 and 2004 series.He kept to warne in the 2004 tour of Sri Lanka when all three tests were played on turners. Also wickets like Sydney and Melboure on the 4th and 5th days are usually big turners then.

Yes, just 2 series in India and 1 in SL. Compare that to someone like Dhoni who has to keep more than 50% of his career on unpredictable, low bounce wickets. The strain is tremendous.

[Sid]

lol at people saying Dhoni is playing in the side only because of lack of other options.It happens only in India. And when it comes to crucial innings in test macthes,I had listed his innings in earlier thread discussed last year.Here it is :

1. 148 vs pak in Faislabad,india were in trouble at to save the follow on,he along with saved that match 2.76 crucial runs in lords test to save india and india went onto win the series,and whenever india has not lost first test in england ,they have won the series in england,so in that context he played a significant role in that series and followed it with 92 in oval 3.Ind vs Pak 2007 ,delhi,india tottering at 92-5 and he sored a 57 and a century stand with laxman ti give india first innings lead and india won that match and series 4.He along with harbhajan got india out of the hole in final test at nagpur with crucial 50 and a 100 run stand and eventually india posted 380 as targert for aussies and aussies lost and made quick fire 92 and 50 in mohali test as well 5.The chennai test which we remember for sachins 100 and viru's blitz ,we forget we were in trouble in first innings 6-137 but he gor the half century and top scored with 57 and another crucial stand with harbhajan in that match to keep us within the reach of england 6.2009 ,Ind vs NZ,wellington test ,india in trouble again 204-6 but agian he along with bhajji got us out of trouble with 50s for both and set up the match for us 7.Ind vs SL ,Ahmedabad test ,again india under pressure ,he scored a century and along with dravid who also made a great century made our score respectable in the first innings and followed it up with another century in the last match 8.Most recently the 100 vs sa to compltely shut the match from sa and shred a great partnership with laxman and carried on theb great work of viru and sachin

Dhoni the test batsman took a dip only after the SL tour ,before that he was doing a good job.He has struggled as a test batsman since that series but still he was on of our top scorers on SA tour.He was very poor during the Eng series ,didnt score even once when the team needed it but to make all the conclusions based on that tour about his uselessnesss as a test WK-batsman is wrong IMO.He has a technique of his own and he knows how to make runs using that. And coming to wicket keeping,can anyone here give me a defination of a good wicket keeper ? Dont know how many times I have wrote this here that Dhoni is not a eye catching atheletic,diving around,showman of a keeper.He is a safe keeper who takes most oppurtunities that comes his way and thats what matters.

[Ultimate_Game]

The guy's a winner. Period. 2 best days of my life as an Indian cricket fan were the T20 final and the WC final and guess what - Dhoni delivered when it mattered. Don't care when ppl say "anyone can win the match for India when our batting is on song" but I haven't seen it happen before Dhoni arrived. Our batting has generally always been strong then how come we won the world tourneys only post Dhoni? As for Tests as a no. 7 bat, wk and a captain Dhoni has done a pretty decent job and you can't really ask much from your no. 7 when the specialist batsmen can't do much. Eng tour was more coz our batsmen failed and not coz Dhoni didn't deliver. Other than Gilchrist there haven't been too many wk-batsmen better than Dhoni and with captaincy thrown in you can't really complain much about Dhoni.

[Precambrian]

Just take the example of the most recent 100 vs WI. People are quick to write this off saying he made merry when conditions were "easy". Well when he came in the score was 396-6, strong score but by no means safe. There was every possibility if he didn't play that innings, we'd have folded for less than 450, and all else remaining the same we'd end up having to score a tricky 160-170 (probably even 200) on Day 4 and 5. Dhoni completely buried Windies out of the match. He's not an exceptional batsman. He is not an exceptional keeper. But he's one helluva exceptional package.

[vamos_rafa]

lol at people saying Dhoni is playing in the side only because of lack of other options.It happens only in India. And when it comes to crucial innings in test macthes,I had listed his innings in earlier thread discussed last year.Here it is : Dhoni the test batsman took a dip only after the SL tour ,before that he was doing a good job.He has struggled as a test batsman since that series but still he was on of our top scorers on SA tour.He was very poor during the Eng series ,didnt score even once when the team needed it but to make all the conclusions based on that tour about his uselessnesss as a test WK-batsman is wrong IMO.He has a technique of his own and he knows how to make runs using that. And coming to wicket keeping,can anyone here give me a defination of a good wicket keeper ? Dont know how many times I have wrote this here that Dhoni is not a eye catching atheletic,diving around,showman of a keeper.He is a safe keeper who takes most oppurtunities that comes his way and thats what matters.

A few additons from me: 1) His innigns of 40 odd at Durban. He had hit Steyn and Morkel for huge 6's. But for him, we would have been bundled out for 150 and a tender lead of 15. 2) There have been a few innigns when everypone else had failed around him. He almost savd the Durban test for us in 2006. The way he was punching the likes of Pollock, Ntini and Nel through the covers on a seaming durban track(played in flood lights) was indeed special. It was a pity that he played one shot too many and got out. Eventually the team got bundledout within 1-2 overs and as always it started raining. 3) His innings of 38 in the famous Sydney test. Again it was a lost cause, but he batted for a long time with Kumble. He really gutsed it out and but for f***knor, he was well and truely on course. We have this fixations that he is not good enough and all. But he has played many crucial ininngs. Just that in India, failures are not tolerated.

[The Outsider]

And coming to wicket keeping,can anyone here give me a defination of a good wicket keeper ? Dont know how many times I have wrote this here that Dhoni is not a eye catching atheletic,diving around,showman of a keeper.He is a safe keeper who takes most oppurtunities that comes his way and thats what matters.

Take a look at some old clips of the likes of Dujon, Marsh, and Knott keeping. Or from the modern times the likes of Gilchrist, Healy, and Reed. Yeah, Dhoni does not "drop" too many catches. But it's just his being uncomfortable standing further up to pace bowlers which costs the team lots of chances. There are numerous occasions when the ball has bounced a few inches in front of him. Not only directly, but it messes up the entire positioning of the slips and at least I have seen chances fall short on many occasions to our slip fielders. Besides the above, he seldom dives for catches which are going towards first slip. Dravid is a natural right hand catcher and will not react as quickly to chances coming to his left. Dhoni is supposed to attempt those, and if you've followed Indian cricket you would have seen numerous chances flying through the wicketkeeper and slip with constant debates on ICF about whose catch was it - there is no debate, it's always the keeper's catch as Benaud would say.