DHONI HITS 50

MS Dhoni scored a quick half century on the 2nd day of the second test match against New Zealand and helped his team secure a huge first inning lead.

The Indian captain walked onto the ground in quite a tricky situation, but, he counter attacked in his own style and put up a 100-run partnership with Ajinkya Rahane to take the match away from the hosts.

Dhoni would not have come into this match in a perfect state of mind as so many negative things were being said about him back home in India, but, he showed why he is regarded as one of the greatest cricketers in the world. While he was out there batting, not for a single moment did it seem that he was under pressure. He tried to take the attack to the opposition right from the word go.

The first bowler that Dhoni took on after walking in was Neil Wagner who was bowling quite well at that point of time. The powerful right hander went after Wagner with full intent. He smacked him for four boundaries on the trot and forced the opposition captain Brendon McCullum to opt for a defensive field.

Once McCullum pushed the field back, Dhoni settled down and started dealing in singles and doubles with odd boundaries. The veteran wicketkeeper was looking all set for his first test hundred overseas, but, it wasn’t to be. In his attempt to guide a short, rising delivery towards fine leg, he inside edged it to BJ Watling and his brilliant knock came to an end.

However, by batting that way, he gave strong answer to those people who were not only questioning his captaincy, but, also, his spot in the Indian test team. Now, he would like his bowlers to bowl New Zealand out cheaply on the 3rd day.

DHONI HAILS GREAT SHOW

The captain of the Indian cricket team, MS Dhoni, has lauded his team for putting up a brilliant show in the recently played 2-match test series against West Indies. India secured huge wins in both the test matches of the series.

It was the last international series for one of the greatest players of all times Sachin Tendulkar and the Indian team couldn’t have given him a better farewell than that. Continue reading DHONI HAILS GREAT SHOW

Dravid backs Captains

Former Indian captain, Rahul Dravid, has said that Sourav Ganguly and Mahendra Singh Dhoni are the best captains that India has ever produced. He said that every captain has his own style of going about his job. Sourav and Mahi are also pretty different. Sourav used to bring a lot of passion in his captaincy. He was very aggressive in his approach. On the other hand, Dhoni is a cool man. He always remains calm and doesn’t lose his composure even in adverse situations. He said that he played under both Sourav and Mahi and according to him, both of them have done a fantastic job for India.

Dravid said that he respects Mahendra Singh Dhoni a lot due to his amazing leadership qualities. As per Dravid, when the team was not doing well in England and Australia, Mahi attended all the press conferences and answered each and every question of the reporters. He never tried to hide himself from the media. And when the team does well, he goes into the background and never tries to take credit of the team’s win. According to Dravid, this is the quality of a true leader. He always leads the team from the front.

On being asked about his hobbies, Dravid said that reading books is his favourite pastime. Even during his playing days, books were his favourite companions. Dravid said that he didn’t used to discuss cricket with any other player, he used to discuss cricket with himself. Dravid said that some of his college friends used to read a lot of different books and from there, he picked the habit of reading books. Dravid said that, apart from cricket, he loved to watch other sports too. Whenever, he gets time, he watches tennis and golf. He said that it is fascinating to watch how the players of other sports go about their job.

DHONI IS WORLD’S BEST

The finishing abilities of Mahendra Singh Dhoni have been praised by some of his rivals, which will come as good news for Captain Cool, who has been under immense pressure over the last few weeks after churning out some very poor results, especially in the recently concluded Test series against Australia, where they were subjected to another whitewash leading to Team India losing eight consecutive Test matches on foreign soil.

Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene was left in disbelief after the Indian skipper managed to snatch a tie in the dying stages of the match, a game that Sri Lanka looked the favorites to win. However, this is not the first time that Dhoni has done it and ironically, in one of his best displays at the death ever, he managed to bring home the Cricket World Cup on home soil after his heroics against the same Sri Lankan side last April.

Speaking to the press after the match, Jayawardene said that it had kind of become a habit to see Mahendra Singh Dhoni take a match away from their grasps and reiterated his standing as the best finisher ever in the game. Dhoni has been unbeaten in 30 out of the 49 run chases that he has featured in for India and has an average of 104.90 while batting second, which is outstanding.

Most of the players who were rated as the best finishers of their time including Michael Bevan, Jonty Rhodes, Lance Klusener and Abdul Razzaq come nowhere close to Dhoni. This praise from his opposite number might just lift the spirits of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who has seen his title of The Man with the Midas Touch disappear with India performing so poorly in the last few series, Tests of One Day Internationals that have been played abroad.