Former India skipper, MS Dhoni is highly regarded as one of the finest captains to have ever played the game. Under his captaincy, India won the top competitions in all formats, for instance: the No.1 Test ranking for 18 months, the 50-over World Cup in 2011 and the T20 World Cup on his captaincy debut in 2007.
Not only in leadership, but Dhoni was also equally brilliant with the willow. His charisma can be expressed with the fact that despite playing mostly at the number 6 position, the Ranchi-born has smashed more than 10,000 runs in ODIs. It is a phenomenal feat as in ODI cricket, batsmen who have reached the landmark of 10k runs are mostly the top-order batters. So, this is enough to explain that if MSD was a top-order player, he might’ve scored much more runs.
Speaking about the same, Dhoni’s former teammate Gautam Gambhir believes that ‘Captain Cool’ could have been a legendary batsman had he continued to bat at number 3. In a Star Sports show ‘Cricket Connected’, Gambhir said that if captaincy wasn’t handed over to Dhoni, then he would have batted in the top order and broken many records.
Gambhir opined that if Dhoni had batted at number three, fans would have seen an entirely different avatar of Dhoni.
“Probably world cricket has missed one thing… that is MS (Dhoni) captained India and did not bat at No. 3. Had MS batted at No. 3, probably world cricket would have seen a completely different player,” added the former opener.
The cricketer-turned-politician further said that Dhoni would have been the most exhilarating cricketer if he had batted at the top order and not captained India.
“Probably he would have got many more runs, broken many records. Forget about records; they are meant to be broken. He would have been the most exciting cricketer in the world had he not captained India and had he batted at No. 3,” articulated Gambhir.
“MS Dhoni batting at No. 3 on flat wickets with the quality of bowling attack now in world cricket… look at Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and West Indies in the current situation, with the quality there is in international cricket, MS Dhoni would have broken most of the records,” he added further.
Dhoni made his debut in 2004 and quickly earned limelight when he played two notable innings against Sri Lanka and Pakistan while batting the no. 3 position. Although Dhoni averaged 82 runs while batting at number 3, still he continued playing in the middle order for a longer time in his career.
