Dhoni dwarfs the Lankans on the day of "Men behind the stumps": Interesting statistics from the Jaipur One-dayer

Mankind is blessed to be a witness to few unstoppable avalanches. Cricket is not an exception too. Sachin's blitzkrieg in Sharjah 1998, Ambrose and Walsh dismissing England for a mere 46, and of course many a memorable Viv Richards innings. The Lankans misery was compounded by the fact that they happened to be the at the receiving end of one such avalanche, during the wrong moment in the tour. The Avalanche had a name, Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The following are some of the extraordinary statistical pieces that were collected by the avalanche in the path it traversed in the sandy Jaipur soil.


1. Dhoni Dhamaka -1 : Almost two-thirds of his runs came in form of boundaries, that included 60 runs apiece from fours and sixes (15 4's and 10 6's) totaling 120 runs of his 183.

2. Dhoni Dhamaka -2 : It is the second highest score by an Indian in one-dayers, the first being Sachin Tendulkar's 186 against New Zealand in 1999.

3. Dhoni Dhamaka -3 : Dhoni was literally on the field for 95.2 overs of the match.

4. Dhoni Dhamaka -4 : Dhoni's two ODI 100s have both been scores above 140 and he has played in only 22 matches so far, averages 49.73 and has already hit as much as 30 sixes.

5. Dhoni Dhamaka -5 : Dhoni as now scored more than 100s than any other Indian batsmen this year in ODI cricket.

The match had other interesting statistical highlights as well, which included:

1. Tillekaratne Dilshan, known more for his batting capabilities, has now taken 15 wickets in his last 10 matches, which included 9 wickets in 5 consecutive matches.

2. India has now won three consecutive one-day matches in a row for the second time this year. But has just won 10 of the 19 matches played this year.

3. Of the four matches, in which Sangakkara scored hundreds, SriLanka has lost three of them, including this match at Jaipur.

4. Mahela Jayawardene was involved in many match-winning partnerships against India. One that comes to mind is the 226 run stand with Atapattu at Sharjah in 2000, 126 runs with Upul Chandana in SriLanka in 2005. But his partnership worth 151 runs with Sangakkara in this match was not lucky as others were.

5. Ferveez Maharoof has interesting stats in this series so far ending up in the extreme zone with both bat and ball. He has scored 53 runs in three matches, the third most by a Sri Lankan so far being Sangakkara (208) and Jayawardene (95). He has claimed just 2 wickets at 75.5 with an economy rate of 7.55, once again the third most expensive after Zoysa (9.25) and Chandana (8.26).

7. In a match that witnessed over 600 runs with an obvious 6+ run-rate, the off-spinners from each side, Muralitharan and Harbhajan Singh have a combined analysis of just 76 runs in 20 overs, with an economy rate of under 4.

8.The match takes Chaminda Vaas' tally in dismissing Sachin Tendulkar to 8 times in One-dayers. This also is the maximum number of times a bowler has dismissed Sachin in one-dayers

9. The match also takes Muralitharan's tally in dismissing Rahul Dravid to 5 times in One-dayers.

10. The match witnessed a unique feature of wicket-keeper batsmen from both sides contributing to 56% of the total runs scored. Interestingly both Sangakkara and Dhoni were responsible for one dismissal in each other side's innings.

11. The amount of the bat dominating the ball is best described by the fact that just 8 wickets fell on the entire day's play and 600+ runs scored, which amounts to more than 75 runs per wicket.