MS Dhoni, the former India captain, played his 300th One-Day International match on Thursday against Sri Lanka. Only 19 men before him have achieved this feat.
The Indian wicketkeeper-batsman’s 13-year career is littered with triumphs, including leading India to a World Cup win in 2011. What separates Dhoni from the rest of his peers, though, is his innate ability to continuously perform at the highest level.
As a batsman who came in lower down the order for most of his career, Dhoni remarkably has scored nearly 10,000 runs and managed to score 10 centuries.
At a stellar average of nearly 52, very few players in the international game come close to eclipsing him. For the number of matches he’s played, no batsman in the modern game comes close, with the exception of AB de Villiers. The South African has played 77 fewer games than Dhoni.
Dhoni’s true skill is being the master of the chase. He’s been a part of 65 successful chases in his career, out of which he has remained unbeaten on 40 occasions.
The latest innings, an unbeaten 49 against Sri Lanka puts him past Chaminda Vaas and Shaun Pollock as the player with highest number of not outs in ODI history. He’s managed to preserve his wicket 73 times out of the 258 innings he’s batted.