Will Dhoni Get His First Half Century In The ICC World T20 2014?

Mahendra Singh Dhoni

MS Dhoni is one of the best players in the T20 format. He led the team to victory in the inaugural ICC World T20 series in 2007. Despite being a good player who has displayed style and talent on field, the coveted score of 50 has evaded him all through his career in international T20 cricket. Surprisingly, he is the only player with 772 runs who has not reached the 50 mark.

The closest that Dhoni had gone to achieving half century was in Stadium Australia against the Australian team. He was stuck on 48 when the match ended. Incidentally, in the penultimate over of the match, he was batting at 45 not out. Of the last over delivered, he got to hit only 2 balls off which he scored 3 runs. RavichandranAshwin had in fact faced the other 4 delivered. India was steamrolled at that match where the team lost by 31 runs.

A plausible cause for Dhoni eluding 50 runs at any particular match may be his position in the batting order. Dhoni usually bats in the middle order, where he goes out to play at No. 5 or No. 6. At this point in the game, very few overs are left to score off. A testimonial of this fact is that Dhoni has not been declared out in 16 of the 40 games that he has batted in. He has, in total, been a part of the squad for 43 times off 46 ones.

One of the games that he opted out for was in 2011 when the Indian team was touring the West Indiesciting fatigue. He played back-to-back in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 and the IPL which is why he chose to opt out of the match. The other two times was in Zimbabwe, 2010, where Suresh Raina acted as the captain in these two games.

Other players who have also scored very well in the T20 format without a dingle half century are AlbieMorkel, Gary Wilson and HashimAmla. Brad Haddin, Australian Batsman-Wicketkeeper and West Indian player Darren Sammy are also present among the top 10 players who have eluded the half century.

Brendan McCullum with 1959 runs off 64 T20 matches is the highest scorer in the format, followed closely by MahelaJayawardene, 1335 runs in his folio. There are only 13 batsmen who have scored above 1000 runs in this format and sadly none of the Indians feature in it. The only player who comes close to making the list is GautamGambhir with 932 runs. He is followed by Yuvraaj Singh who has scored 868 runs and Suresh Raina, 859 runs.

RavindraJadeja, India’s star all-rounder performer is yet to score a half century in either the domestic or international form of the T20. Despite playing in 104 matches and scoring 1278 runs, his highest score remains 48 not out.

Tune in to the ICC World T20 2014 tourney to see if Dhoni manages to break the jinx. To cheer him on, you can buy sports memorabilia and merchandise. For practising the sport better, get your own cricket kit too!