What's new

Is MS Dhoni the best ever ODI wicket-keeper batsman?

T

transitional

Debutant
Joined
Mar 20, 2016
Runs
105
There are not many choices.

Runs, AVG, SR as a designated keeper:

Sangakkara - 13341, 44, 80
Gilchrist - 9410, 36, 97
Dhoni - 9110, 51, 89
Flower - 5845, 36, 73
ABDV - 2963, 71, 101
QdK - 2847, 44, 95

I did not include McCullum, Stewart, Dravid, Boucher because of either their low average or low SR.

For me, it is between Dhoni and Gilchrist. Sangakkara has impressive numbers with most runs, but I dont recall any major ICC tournament wins and MOM, MOS awards.

Gilchrist is a 3 time world cup winner, and MOM once. He did play well in all 3 finals.
Dhoni was MOM in the only world cup he won.

Gilly average looks low, but he had significant impact at the top.
Dhoni was more dependable with amazing average and very good SR.

I will go with Dhoni, but only slightly, over Gilly.

How do I create a poll for this?
 
Also spare of thought to ABDV... Average of 70 at SR 101 is phenomenal. But he has less than 1/3rd the runs as top 3 have, and I am not sure how good he was as a "keeper".
 
aliasad1998 said:
Don't care about stats. Gilchrist for me
Click to expand...

Well, His stats are damn good for me. He started in 90s, so his SR is amazing for late 90s, early 2000s.

Plus he was a BIG MATCH player. He played well in every WC final (54, 57, 149).

Damn! I might change my vote to Gilly!!
 
I wouldn't consider AB for this category.

Dhoni is the best ODI WK-bat by far, much better than Gilchrist. Gilchrist didn't do well in South Africa, NZ, WI, Sri Lanka etc.
 
transitional said:
Well, His stats are damn good for me. He started in 90s, so his SR is amazing for late 90s, early 2000s.

Plus he was a BIG MATCH player. He played well in every WC final (54, 57, 149).

Damn! I might change my vote to Gilly!!
Click to expand...

He debuted near the end of 1996, and had a SR of around 90 until 2003. In that time period, Sehwag, Afridi and Symonds had significantly higher strike rates and Jayasuriya, Klusener, Sachin etc had a similar SR.
 
its really hard to compare players as ppl pull out alot of factors out of nowhere
but avg of 36 don't have chance against avg of 50.
 
Dhoni.

When you include his captaincy in ODIs, it becomes much easier despite Gilchrist's prominence too.
 
Dhoni was indeed. Gilly was opener but what dhoni did at lower order and greatest finisher as well was really amazing. Add on to his captaincy as well . Truly dhoni was greatest of all time.
 
massive respect for both gilly and dhoni//

cant disrespect any1 by comparing them.. they both played cricket and brought many new fans to cricket..
 
I regard Dhoni as best ever ODI Wicket keeper batsman.
 
Dhoni did it in the country which was not known for Wicket-Keeper cum Batsman kind of alrounder (still Kirmani is the next best and light years behind Dhoni!) Plus he took on captaincy! And most times the team was devoid of aggressive batsmen like Australia have in their arsenal which made it easier for Gilchirst to operate especially at the top! Even in Wicket-keeping area Dhoni scores a bit more than Gilchrist because of his lightening stumping and creating opportunities from nowhere (collecting awkward throws from deep and creating runouts!) Gilchrist was just decent.
 
Yes.

An ATG ODI finisher in his prime.

Plus the pressure of captaincy in India. It's incredible to see what he's done over his career.

I'd put him ahead of Gilly.
 
Gilchrist had greater impact, batted up front and didn't rely on pretty little 30's and 40's. Dhoni is not a player to win games on his own. He struggled to up the tempo of the game when all wasn't pretty. On numerous occasions he has batted below the required run rate with no intention of winning the match.
 
Yes, he is. As a pure finisher, I would pick Bevan over Dhoni but there is no doubting the all-round value that Dhoni would provide to any side.
 
Gilchrist any time. Its an insult to compare a glorified slogger with atg great keeper of all time not just odis.
 
Gilchrist was the better batsman, opening the batting against the new ball is harder than coming in at 6 or 7 in the slog overs; when the bowlers are looking to just concede less than 8 runs an over and not thinking about taking wickets.

I think Dhoni was the better keeper though, he is so intelligent behind the stumps with run outs, and so good at stumpings.
 
Some of his fans are saying that gilly has not done well in nz,sa,sl but what has dhoni outside of asia to merit this hyperbole ? He is a non performing passenger captain who had done zilch in his entire icc career other than a flukish 90 in the final
 
According to me he is indian equivalent of hashim amla who was great in jamodis initially and who is an utterfailure in icc tournaments .it is his captaincy myth that is clouding everyones perception
 
Pretty good record barring South Africa

[table=width: 500, class: grid, align: center]
[tr][td] Dhoni [/td][td]Span [/td][td]Mat [/td][td]Runs [/td][td]Ave [/td][td]SR [/td][td]100 [/td][td]50 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Overall [/td][td]2004-2016 [/td][td]283 [/td][td]9110 [/td][td]50.89 [/td][td]88.8 [/td][td]9 [/td][td]61 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] [/td][td] [/td][td] [/td][td] [/td][td] [/td][td] [/td][td] [/td][td] [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]in Australia [/td][td]2008-2016 [/td][td]32 [/td][td]860 [/td][td]40.95 [/td][td]76.17 [/td][td]0 [/td][td]5 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]in Bangladesh [/td][td]2004-2015 [/td][td]20 [/td][td]610 [/td][td]55.45 [/td][td]89.18 [/td][td]1 [/td][td]3 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]in England [/td][td]2007-2014 [/td][td]21 [/td][td]519 [/td][td]37.07 [/td][td]85.64 [/td][td]0 [/td][td]5 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]in India [/td][td]2005-2016 [/td][td]108 [/td][td]3985 [/td][td]58.6 [/td][td]93.26 [/td][td]7 [/td][td]22 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]in New Zealand [/td][td]2009-2015 [/td][td]12 [/td][td]541 [/td][td]90.16 [/td][td]96.95 [/td][td]0 [/td][td]6 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]in Pakistan [/td][td]2006-2008 [/td][td]11 [/td][td]546 [/td][td]136.5 [/td][td]105.4 [/td][td]1 [/td][td]5 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]in South Africa [/td][td]2006-2013 [/td][td]15 [/td][td]301 [/td][td]25.08 [/td][td]78.79 [/td][td]0 [/td][td]2 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]in Sri Lanka [/td][td]2005-2012 [/td][td]33 [/td][td]1078 [/td][td]44.91 [/td][td]79.79 [/td][td]0 [/td][td]9 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]in West Indies [/td][td]2006-2013 [/td][td]14 [/td][td]378 [/td][td]37.8 [/td][td]84.56 [/td][td]0 [/td][td]1 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]in Zimbabwe [/td][td]2005-2016 [/td][td]8 [/td][td]173 [/td][td]57.66 [/td][td]110.19 [/td][td]0 [/td][td]2 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] [/td][td] [/td][td] [/td][td] [/td][td] [/td][td] [/td][td] [/td][td] [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]home [/td][td]2005-2016 [/td][td]105 [/td][td]3811 [/td][td]57.74 [/td][td]92.18 [/td][td]6 [/td][td]22 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]away [/td][td]2004-2016 [/td][td]119 [/td][td]3772 [/td][td]46 [/td][td]85.22 [/td][td]1 [/td][td]31 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]neutral [/td][td]2005-2015 [/td][td]59 [/td][td]1527 [/td][td]49.25 [/td][td]89.87 [/td][td]2 [/td][td]8 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] [/td][td] [/td][td] [/td][td] [/td][td] [/td][td] [/td][td] [/td][td] [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]is captain [/td][td]2007-2016 [/td][td]199 [/td][td]6633 [/td][td]53.92 [/td][td]86.29 [/td][td]6 [/td][td]47 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]is not captain [/td][td]2004-2007 [/td][td]84 [/td][td]2477 [/td][td]44.23 [/td][td]96.26 [/td][td]3 [/td][td]14 [/td][/tr]
[/table]
 
Last edited:
I question his fans please tell me one innings in his entire icc career where he is solely reponsible like gilchrist done in 2007 final?
 
His stats are boosted by notouts .can any one post one superlative knock he played outside of india ?
 
Pantani said:
Gilchrist was the better batsman, opening the batting against the new ball is harder than coming in at 6 or 7 in the slog overs; when the bowlers are looking to just concede less than 8 runs an over and not thinking about taking wickets.

I think Dhoni was the better keeper though, he is so intelligent behind the stumps with run outs, and so good at stumpings.
Click to expand...
Thats why every team easily finds a opener in odi than finisher after all it is very easy to bat at 6-7 .
South africa is still struggling to find one after Klusner, Australia after Hussey, hell even India is struggling with yuvi not in team and Dhoni out of form.
You can easily find a opener is odi any day of the week but finding the good finisher is nearly impossible. See the history how many good openers and no. 3 are but how many good finishers are? You can count on fingers , Hussey, Bevan, Dhoni and ? May be yuvi, or Matthew, Symonds.
Same way if I start counting openers , I will keep on counting and counting again.
 
soso_killer said:
Gilchrist had greater impact, batted up front and didn't rely on pretty little 30's and 40's. Dhoni is not a player to win games on his own. He struggled to up the tempo of the game when all wasn't pretty. On numerous occasions he has batted below the required run rate with no intention of winning the match.
Click to expand...

Well Gili was same , he also use to make 20- 30 and get out.
Gili has 9600runs in 287 matches and Dhoni has 9100 in 283 matches, Gili was opener got more chance , more over, but scored less.
 
[MENTION=132982]soso_killer[/MENTION] In the end how tough Dhoni Job is by just looking at your own side, lost Klusner still struggling to find one great finisher like him, lost Gary, Gibbs but found Smith, Amla and Qdk .
 
Gilli may have got out for 30s and 40s but he would never suck the momentum away from the match with his hackish play
 
Navdeep Srivastava said:
Thats why every team easily finds a opener in odi than finisher after all it is very easy to bat at 6-7 .
South africa is still struggling to find one after Klusner, Australia after Hussey, hell even India is struggling with yuvi not in team and Dhoni out of form.
You can easily find a opener is odi any day of the week but finding the good finisher is nearly impossible. See the history how many good openers and no. 3 are but how many good finishers are? You can count on fingers , Hussey, Bevan, Dhoni and ? May be yuvi, or Matthew, Symonds.
Same way if I start counting openers , I will keep on counting and counting again.
Click to expand...

Count them. Also add Inzamam, Raina and Matthews to the finishers' list.
 
The problem with southafrica is that the whole team chokes not only the finisher.a finisher is one who finishes games by continuing the hood work done by openers and middle order.if the openers and middle order are choking what can a finisher do and what is the use of finishet
 
Navdeep Srivastava said:
Thats why every team easily finds a opener in odi than finisher after all it is very easy to bat at 6-7 .
South africa is still struggling to find one after Klusner, Australia after Hussey, hell even India is struggling with yuvi not in team and Dhoni out of form.
You can easily find a opener is odi any day of the week but finding the good finisher is nearly impossible. See the history how many good openers and no. 3 are but how many good finishers are? You can count on fingers , Hussey, Bevan, Dhoni and ? May be yuvi, or Matthew, Symonds.
Same way if I start counting openers , I will keep on counting and counting again.
Click to expand...

Forget the names. James Faulkner is a finisher, for goodness sake. It doesn't mean you're a good player just because that's your role in the team. By this logic you are using that finishers are 'rarer' than top order batsmen, and so finishers must be better cricketers than top order batsmen; then Sanath Jayasuriya as an all rounder is a better test cricketer than Tendulkar because good all rounders are rarer than good top order batsmen.

I want you to argue with some sort of logical premise that explains why it is harder to face an old ball against bowlers who are not trying to take wickets, when there are no slips or catching fielders in place, as many fielders as allowed are right on the boundary and the rest are on the edge of the circle. Compared to facing a new ball against bowlers who are trying to take wickets like it's a test match, with two slips in and catching fielders inside the circle. If you don't take early wickets in an ODI you're done. If you don't take wickets in the final ten, it doesn't matter, so long as you don't concede 80+ runs.

There is not a captain or team in the world who would take 5/85 in the final 10 overs over 0/60, and that is why opening is harder than batting at 6 or 7.

The only benefit of being a top order player in ODIs is that you get the opportunity to get hundreds more frequently, because you will have more time at the wicket. Nobody here has said Gilchrist is a better player than Dhoni because Dhoni only has 9 hundreds while Gilchrist has 16. Not one person has yet given this reason, so we can write off this one sole benefit of opening the batting that Gilchrist enjoyed over Dhoni as being an irrelevant one.
 
Bilal7 said:
Count them. Also add Inzamam, Raina and Matthews to the finishers' list.
Click to expand...
Inzamam , very good odi player, how can I forget him? But with Raina and Matthews that they are decent not good or great, so if you count decent finisher in the list then there are still more decent opener, for eg even from Lanka on one Matthews Sanath, Mahela( as a opner) Attapattu, Tharanga( not good but still decent ) with Sanga as no.3. Same with Dhoni , Yuvi and even Raina ( only decent)there are more openers like Ganguly, Sachin, Gautham, Sehwag, Dhawan, Rohit and even Rahul has a potential to be very good opener.
Look from Australia on Hussey and Bevan may be Symonds there are Gili, Hayden, Warner, Watson, Taylor , Waugh and even now they have better opener in form of Finch than reliable finisher.
 
Pantani said:
Forget the names. James Faulkner is a finisher, for goodness sake. It doesn't mean you're a good player just because that's your role in the team. By this logic you are using that finishers are 'rarer' than top order batsmen, and so finishers must be better cricketers than top order batsmen; then Sanath Jayasuriya as an all rounder is a better test cricketer than Tendulkar because good all rounders are rarer than good top order batsmen.

I want you to argue with some sort of logical premise that explains why it is harder to face an old ball against bowlers who are not trying to take wickets, when there are no slips or catching fielders in place, as many fielders as allowed are right on the boundary and the rest are on the edge of the circle. Compared to facing a new ball against bowlers who are trying to take wickets like it's a test match, with two slips in and catching fielders inside the circle. If you don't take early wickets in an ODI you're done. If you don't take wickets in the final ten, it doesn't matter, so long as you don't concede 80 runs.

There is not a captain or team in the world who would take 5/85 in the final 10 overs over 0/60, and that is why opening is harder than batting at 6 or 7.

The only benefit of being a top order player in ODIs is that you get the opportunity to get hundreds more frequently, because you will have more time at the wicket. Nobody here has said Gilchrist is a better player than Dhoni because Dhoni only has 9 hundreds while Gilchrist has 16. Not one person has yet given this reason, so we can write off this one sole benefit of opening the batting that Gilchrist enjoyed over Dhoni as being an irrelevant one.
Click to expand...
No I am not saying anything, what I am saying if opening is tough so is finishing and mind you rarely find a good finisher , most are decent at best like Faulkner.
Another benefit is you can score more runs but as I said before Dhoni scored. same run as Gili as lower middle order batsman
 
Drreddymd said:
The problem with southafrica is that the whole team chokes not only the finisher.a finisher is one who finishes games by continuing the hood work done by openers and middle order.if the openers and middle order are choking what can a finisher do and what is the use of finishet
Click to expand...

LOL, of all your posts this is the only one worth replying too.
You make absolute sense, it's not as if Dhoni walks in with the game a hopeless course. He comes in with a solid platform laid. And bats at his own tempo and then accelerate with two or three overs to go, when the match could have been won 5 or 6 overs earlier based on the scoring rate of that particular match.

While others overate him, you do massively underrate him. He's a good player, perhaps not as good as he's made out to be. He will never destroy a world class bowling unit like Klusner etc., but a good player.
He has his limitations no doubt about it. He's a momentum kind of a player and rides the wave. When the going gets tough he loses interest and simply bats for his average.
 
soso_killer said:
LOL, of all your posts this is the only one worth replying too.
You make absolute sense, it's not as if Dhoni walks in with the game a hopeless course. He comes in with a solid platform laid. And bats at his own tempo and then accelerate with two or three overs to go, when the match could have been won 5 or 6 overs earlier based on the scoring rate of that particular match.

While others overate him, you do massively underrate him. He's a good player, perhaps not as good as he's made out to be. He will never destroy a world class bowling unit like Klusner etc., but a good player.
He has his limitations no doubt about it. He's a momentum kind of a player and rides the wave. When the going gets tough he loses interest and simply bats for his average.
Click to expand...

If you had one player to do the same for South Africa, you may actually have won something of significance after all these years in Cricket.
 
It is improper to compare Dhoni with Gilchrist on stroke-play alone as an opener (In that regard Sehwag scores more than Gilchrist) Also it is foolishness to think that Gilchrist opened the innings and Dhoni becomes a coward to come down the order (What logic is this? Can we say the same with Gilchrist who couldn't come down the order?) It is the overall impact of the player.
 
Gilly avg 35 and SR of 96
Sehwag avg 35 and SR 104

How many of you pick Sehwag as a better ODI batsman than Dhoni? Simply as a batsman Dhoni is one of the best in history without getting into keeper batsman kind of category.
 
MSD is a great batsmen in Odis and I would say he's a better keeper than Gilly. Gilly was an opener whilst ms is a 6/7 so difficult to compare .
 
Buffet said:
Gilly avg 35 and SR of 96
Sehwag avg 35 and SR 104

How many of you pick Sehwag as a better ODI batsman than Dhoni? Simply as a batsman Dhoni is one of the best in history without getting into keeper batsman kind of category.
Click to expand...
Perfectly said, I will not pick Gili as a pure batsman over Dhoni .
 
Hasan123 said:
MSD is a great batsmen in Odis and I would say he's a better keeper than Gilly. Gilly was an opener whilst ms is a 6/7 so difficult to compare .
Click to expand...
Gilly was a better keeper and was more athletic, some of his catches which he took while diving full stretch are pure athleticism, Dhoni stumping is better
 
13-8 for Dhoni so far.. He is emerging as the winner for the tag of the "Best ODI Keeper-Batsman Ever".
 
Zak_Fan said:
If you had one player to do the same for South Africa, you may actually have won something of significance after all these years in Cricket.
Click to expand...

Nope South Africa choke up front, Dhoni would have been useless for us.
Our approach to cricket has always been lets keep wickets up-front and accelerate towards the end. That's why SA were poor chasers until the emergence of QdK who goes hard up front.
Dhoni is not someone who goes hard upfront irrespective of the asking rate.
What SA need is a Lance Klusner, someone who takes the bowling attack out of the equation.
 
Makes an extremely strong case but for me Gilchrist edges over him. However, both are ATG ODI wicket-keeper batsman but I feel like Gilly has played more important knocks, or at least more memorable ones. Not taking anything away from Dhoni but its just my opinion. I guess this is a matter of a persons liking because anyone saying Dhoni would not be exactly wrong either.
 
The argument for Gilly is that he didn't play in an era when batsmen like Warner, Sharjeel, Guptill, Hales, Sharma etc are scoring 100s for fun. His competition were players like Ganguly, Sachin, Sehwag, Anwar, Jayasuriya etc...Back when stats in different countries actually mattered and ODIs didn't become a poor mans T20. For Dhoni, he has people like James Faulkner, Adam Ronchi, etc. rivalling him. Having said that however, there have been instances such as the 100 Dhoni scored when Junaid Khan was running through India on some pretty bowler friendly wickets which indicate that Dhoni could score in tougher conditions in ODIs too. As such, he has much better stats, is also a big match player like Gilly and has been among the best ODI batsman pretty much all his career. Don't go by how he's performing in his decline(same logic for a champion batsman like Younis Khan who's also scoring 100s in Australia well past his prime).

Dhoni isn't just the better batsman, he's among the best ever batsmen to play ODIs. I would take Dhoni over Gilly quite easily, is also probably the best pressure handler I've ever seen. Gilchrist however is also a brilliant batsman.
 
Gilchrist

People comparing him to openers at his time but conveniently not comparing him to other WK batsmen at the time who were utter crap. Gilchrist set the tone and standard for WK batsmen of this generation. and era
 
Last edited:
dhoni....he has won alot of matches for india in pressure situations...and his record also says that so
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Ab Fan
Which set of wicket-keeper batsmen do you prefer in Test Cricket?
Replies
35
Views
2K
jeeteshssaxena
jeeteshssaxena
jeetu
Stats: Rating players by their performance against each country
Replies
12
Views
479
jeetu
jeetu
jeetu
Stats - Rating Top 100 ODI batsman by match performance comparison
Replies
24
Views
1K
King_Kohli
King_Kohli
jeetu
Stats - Rating ODI batsman by taking Peer Factor into account
Replies
15
Views
2K
jeetu
jeetu
jeetu
Stats - Rating Test batsman by taking Peer Factor into account
Replies
6
Views
2K
jeetu
jeetu
Back
Top