Is Dhoni greatest captain wicket keeper ever ?

[GautiMaan]

Home performance has never been much of an issue with him. He keeps well to spinners' date=' bats well on pattas, and is a decent captain for spinners. Question is what's going to happen in South Africa - a keeper clueless on fast pitches, a walking wicket, and a captain who lets opposition run away from scorelines like 120/8 and 27/4?[/quote'] Not everyone keeps well to spinners(just watching Wade btw),the only option is to wait for Virat to be ready as far as captaincy is concerned,and we dont have any Gilchrist waiting in the ranks either

[The Outsider]

Not everyone keeps well to spinners(just watching Wade btw)' date='the only option is to wait for Virat to be ready as far as captaincy is concerned,and we dont have any Gilchrist waiting in the ranks either[/quote'] Getting Saha in will at least improve the performance of the keeper. Dhoni is pretty ordinary with the bat outside the subcontinent anyway, Saha might be marginally worse and any captain will be better than the way he performed on those two tours. At the very least the new captain will not say that away matches are just for practice since India plays 80% in the subcontinent or get in his cronies like Raina into the team.

[Crookbond]

Home performance has never been much of an issue with him. He keeps well to spinners' date=' bats well on pattas, and is a decent captain for spinners. Question is what's going to happen in South Africa - a keeper clueless on fast pitches, a walking wicket, and a captain who lets opposition run away from scorelines like 120/8 and 27/4?[/quote'] Who is your alternative from MS Dhoni who will do well both home & away? It seems like you are expecting a Gilchrist or a Sangakkara. Do we have one? Karthik comes close but apart from that it is the TINA factor which will make Dhoni's value premium.

[carnish]

I rated Andy Flower better than Dhoni not on basis of results but on basis of how he lead that not so strong Zimbabwe side to certain heights.

[GautiMaan]

Getting Saha in will at least improve the performance of the keeper. Dhoni is pretty ordinary with the bat outside the subcontinent anyway' date=' Saha might be marginally worse and any captain will be better than the way he performed on those two tours. At the very least the new captain will not say that away matches are just for practice since India plays 80% in the subcontinent or get in his cronies like Raina into the team.[/quote'] From what I've seen Saha's glovework is good,but the selectors dont differentiate between Home and Away performances with the bat,Saha must improve his batting if he wants to replace MS

[Ultimate_Game]

I rated Andy Flower better than Dhoni not on basis of results but on basis of how he lead that not so strong Zimbabwe side to certain heights.

But Flower didn't keep in Tests throughout.

[carnish]

But Flower didn't keep in Tests throughout.

I saw him from late 1998 till his retirement and he was keeping in tests. I liked his captaincy in that period. Dont remember the stats and havent checked it but his keeping was as good as they come and his batting esp. against India was MashaAllah

[putrevus]

Dhoni is best wicketkeeper/batsman for India right now these fricking Sahas and others are just not good enough to replace him. If they are any good let them score heavily first in FC first since they are not much of an upgrade to Dhoni in any way at the moment. The best keeper/batsman for India if there is one is still not playing first class cricket. But Dhoni has to improve his batting overseas and home also, he cannot be a walking wicket when ball is swinging, he needs to perform a lot better with bat away from home and at home India needs centuries from him now that batting is weak comparatively. Captaincy is something which needs to be considered and only Kohli is the only guy who is a replacement but he is still very young in test cricket so by default captaincy goes to Dhoni.

[Crookbond]

But Flower didn't keep in Tests throughout.

Actually, he played most of his 63 Test matches as a WK. :hatsoff: No code has to be inserted here.

[saneindian]

No he is not. In ODIs, if he carries on performing for another 3-4 years, he will have a case but in tests he is far from being the best ever keeper-batsman in India forget the world. Farokh Engineer or Syed Kirmani will have better claims to be in the all time Indian 11 than MSD unless MSD scores tons of runs during the next run of away tours.

[saneindian]

Dhoni is best wicketkeeper/batsman for India right now these fricking Sahas and others are just not good enough to replace him. If they are any good let them score heavily first in FC first since they are not much of an upgrade to Dhoni in any way at the moment. The best keeper/batsman for India if there is one is still not playing first class cricket. But Dhoni has to improve his batting overseas and home also, he cannot be a walking wicket when ball is swinging, he needs to perform a lot better with bat away from home and at home India needs centuries from him now that batting is weak comparatively. Captaincy is something which needs to be considered and only Kohli is the only guy who is a replacement but he is still very young in test cricket so by default captaincy goes to Dhoni.

Saha did score heavily post his return from Australia this year. Scored 4-5 100s in all forms.

[putrevus]

Saha did score heavily post his return from Australia this year. Scored 4-5 100s in all forms.

He has eight 100s in in all the cricket he has played (7 in first class and 1 in limited overs)so far and last four matches he played are 3 for India A and one test match and he has not scored any hundreds in them. So where did he score those 4-5 100s you are talking about.So far what I have seen from this guy he is not a better batsman nor keeper than Dhoni.

[putrevus]

Since when kirmani and Engineer became better batsmen than Dhoni anywhere forget in India. Kirmani was just better than a tailender who could play support role at best, it is not like he was the greatest wicket keeper, I would not rate his wicket keeping skills that much better than Dhoni to over come his lack of skill as a batsman. Engineer was a slasher who was an opener, I don't know much about him but I doubt he was better than Dhoni. Dhoni in spite of all his flaws is greatest all round wicket keeper India has ever produced there is no question about it. His greatest weakness is test match batting especially overseas which has to improve which I doubt he will ever improve to large extent.

[Raghav_12]

And I'm sure opponents will be sh**ing their pants seeing Saha in the team instead of Dhoni. I am sure if someone looks at Saha closely and puts him under as much scrutiny' date=' he/she will be able to find dropped chances and fumbles as well.[/quote'] I don't have access to cricinfo here, otherwise I would have posted the link where Cricinfo had rated Dhoni's performance (on australian test tour) as 0.5/10 while Saha was rated as 4/10. Still only Srikanth can answer that why Dhoni was still allowed to lead Indian team any further. Coming back to comment, I made about Kiran More. I stand by that. You need to talk to somebody who has seen both Kiran More and Dhoni play and ask them if Indian score is 150/5 in a test match in Australia, whom they would prefer to walk in next, Dhoni or More? Overall, More might have averaged much less than Dhoni. But his average goes up by 40-45% when he plays away from India while Dhoni's average come down by 20-25%. Eventually both end up with an away average close to 30. If you further take Dhoni's average of 90 in Bangladesh away, they would be even closer. Whoever has seen More know that he was very gutsy player and had a knack of playing good when India was in trouble, a bit similar to Matt Prior.

[rkt.india]

If I'm not wrong then' date=' he wasn't best batsman even in his state teams which hardly produce international cricketers.[/quote'] Which WK has been the best batsman of his team. He is like an alrounder who has two aspects to his game.

[saneindian]

He has eight 100s in in all the cricket he has played (7 in first class and 1 in limited overs)so far and last four matches he played are 3 for India A and one test match and he has not scored any hundreds in them. So where did he score those 4-5 100s you are talking about.So far what I have seen from this guy he is not a better batsman nor keeper than Dhoni.

Since returning from Australia Saha's scores in domestic cricket were http://cricketarchive.com/cgi-bin/player_oracle_reveals_results1.cgi 124, 170 for East Zone in 2 consecutive Duleep Trophy matches (earlier in the season had hit a 167* for Bengal). Two hundreds on pitches that were not your normal pattas. 85*, 55*, 65, 72, 53, 53, 11, 18 in domestic one dayers for Bengal and EZ. His 2011-12 season was FC- 5 matches, 528 runs@132 with 3 100s List A- 11 matches, 497 runs@82 If domestic cricket is used as a parameter, you cannot ask more from the bat of an understudy keeper.

[Ultimate_Game]

I don't have access to cricinfo here, otherwise I would have posted the link where Cricinfo had rated Dhoni's performance (on australian test tour) as 0.5/10 while Saha was rated as 4/10. Still only Srikanth can answer that why Dhoni was still allowed to lead Indian team any further. Coming back to comment, I made about Kiran More. I stand by that. You need to talk to somebody who has seen both Kiran More and Dhoni play and ask them if Indian score is 150/5 in a test match in Australia, whom they would prefer to walk in next, Dhoni or More? Overall, More might have averaged much less than Dhoni. But his average goes up by 40-45% when he plays away from India while Dhoni's average come down by 20-25%. Eventually both end up with an away average close to 30. If you further take Dhoni's average of 90 in Bangladesh away, they would be even closer. Whoever has seen More know that he was very gutsy player and had a knack of playing good when India was in trouble, a bit similar to Matt Prior.

Let me clear up a few myths about More, the so called legend... 1. More's %ge may go up by 25-30% away but that increase is cr@p since a 25% increase of a minimal average is not that good. E.g., I will take Apple stock even if it falls 10% in value compared to say HP stock even if HP stock goes up by 50%. 2. Wasn't More the wk who dropped a sitter off Gooch when Gooch was on 36 and he went on to make 333? More dropped the game and cost us the Eng series single handedly but nope he was a "great" wicket-keeper. I can probably find such examples for ever wk but Dhoni is unfortunate enough to play in a connected era where every single mistake or even a "could have been a mistake" is highlighted whereas likes of Mores who played before the internet age could have dropped dollies and cost us series and gtten away with it. So we have established More away is not better than Dhoni, his keeping wasn't that good as it was made out to be as the 1990 Eng tour can testify, and at home it's not even a contest. Anything more you want to add about so called "legend" More or you are gonna go with Mongia next? And don't even insult Prior by comparing Prior when Prior scores gutsy 100s whereas More most probably managed gutsy 20s.

[Raghav_12]

Let me clear up a few myths about More, the so called legend... 1. More's %ge may go up by 25-30% away but that increase is cr@p since a 25% increase of a minimal average is not that good. E.g., I will take Apple stock even if it falls 10% in value compared to say HP stock even if HP stock goes up by 50%. 2. Wasn't More the wk who dropped a sitter off Gooch when Gooch was on 36 and he went on to make 333? More dropped the game and cost us the Eng series single handedly but nope he was a "great" wicket-keeper. I can probably find such examples for ever wk but Dhoni is unfortunate enough to play in a connected era where every single mistake or even a "could have been a mistake" is highlighted whereas likes of Mores who played before the internet age could have dropped dollies and cost us series and gtten away with it. So we have established More away is not better than Dhoni, his keeping wasn't that good as it was made out to be as the 1990 Eng tour can testify, and at home it's not even a contest. Anything more you want to add about so called "legend" More or you are gonna go with Mongia next?

wasn't Bradman the Batsman who couldn't score even 4 runs when required and got out for 0?

[Ultimate_Game]

wasn't Bradman the Batsman who couldn't even score 4 runs when required and got out for 0?

But Bradman still ended up with an average of 99.94 :facepalm: Now after comparing More to Dhoni, Prior you are bringing in Bradman Dude just admit it that you have been caught with your pants down with the Gooch drop and the 1990 series where More did jack shyte. But nope you are so one eyed at the moment you will probably bring in Viv Richards as well after Bradman :haha:

[Raghav_12]

But Bradman still ended up with an average of 99.94 :facepalm: Now after comparing More to Dhoni, Prior you are bringing in Bradman Dude just admit it that you have been caught with your pants down with the Gooch drop and the 1990 series where More did jack shyte. But nope you are so one eyed at the moment you will probably bring in Viv Richards as well after Bradman :haha:

You once again proved that you use ICF to improve your typing speed.