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India vs Australia: Numbers reveal MS Dhoni-Virat Kohli impact on run chases
“There’s no doubt that he should be a part of this team. When you haven’t played so much cricket [recently], you take a bit of time to get back into the groove, and tonight was an MS classic,” Kohli said at the post-match presentation.
MS Dhoni walked out to the centre, he met Virat Kohli, started chugging the scoreboard along, kept dinking the balls away for a single, a quick brace, the perfect template for a Dhoni chase.
He then took the chase deep into the final over, biffed Jason Behrendorff for a six over deep mid-wicket and sealed the chase. Tucked the bat under his arms, took off the gloves and trudged off. The perfect Dhoni chase.
“There’s no doubt that he should be a part of this team. When you haven’t played so much cricket [recently], you take a bit of time to get back into the groove, and tonight was an MS classic,” Kohli said at the post-match presentation.
Two 50s in as many matches, the first one was dogged and could not get the job done, this one was lucid and took India over the line. He now has three fifties at the Adelaide Oval, and all the efforts are unbeaten. With an average of 131 at the Adelaide Oval, this is his 2nd best at a venue with a minimum of 5 innings batted.
With this unbeaten 50, Dhoni has nudged past captain Virat Kohli as far as the batting average is concerned with players to have scored more than 1000 runs.
Dhoni averages 99.85 which is 0.81 better than Kohli. And when they combine, like it has so often been in the past, they finish off matches.
The seasoned campaigner hit his 34th fifty-plus score in ODI chases and this places him at the number 3 position in the list of most 50+ scores in ODI chases as a wicket-keeper.
16 out of the aforementioned efforts have been unbeaten and this shows his ability to stay put and get the job done. No other wicket-keeper has more than 10 unbeaten knocks in the second innings.
