Former India skipper MS Dhoni is widely deemed as one of the greatest wicket-keepers of all time. However, you will be surprised to know that the veteran glovesman barely put any hard yard in the practice session to improve his keeping skills.
Besides, Dhoni’s street-smartness and razor sharp advices for the bowlers behind the stumps always proved to be the nightmare for opposition batsmen. He doesn’t follow the coaching manual and has his very own unorthodox wicket-keeping technique, but still holds the world record of most number of stumpings in international cricket.
Dhoni became the first ever wicket-keeper in the history of ODI cricket to affect 100 stumpings last year. The Jharkhad man boats of 172 stumpings to his name across all three formats, which is 33 more than his nearest rival Kumar Sangakkara.
On Friday (January 19) Dhoni opened up his quicksilver-like movement behind the wickets. The legendary wicketkeeper also disclosed that his Chennai Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming has never seen him keep wickets in net sessions.
“I think it’s because of my unorthodox keeping style. Stephen Fleming always says that he has never seen me keep wickets in net sessions in his nine years of IPL coaching. I think a lot of it needs to be done in the mind,” Dhoni quoted in an exclusive interview with New Indian Express.
“Keepers don’t really need a lot of catching. I have seen over-exaggeration from some keepers. They start going on the floor, ‘very frog style’ of keeping and ‘jaw is parallel to the floor’. What is a keeper supposed to do? You can drop 100 balls, but whenever there is a catch you take it and whenever there is a stumping opportunity, you take it. That’s what’s needed. You don’t want a very good keeper who is not consistent. You want a very bad keeper who keeps fumbling, but takes catches, effects stumping and helps captain set the right field,” he further added.
Dhoni is currently in India and will travel to South Africa for India’s limited-overs leg after the conclusion of three-match test series. India are scheduled to play six ODIs and three T20Is against the Proteas from February 1.
