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Dhoni holds world's best ODI strike rate
With his unbeaten 183 against Lanka at Jaipur, he has surpassed hard-hitters like Tendulkar, Sehwag and Gilchrist.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni now has the world's best career strike rate in one-dayers and the second best average of all time, surpassing hard-hitters like Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Adam Gilchrist.
After 24 one-day internationals (ODIs), Dhoni has a strike rate of 108.50 and an average of 49.43, second only to Australian Michael Bevan's 53.58. Bevan has played 232 matches.
Dhoni, only 24, took the giant leap in both categories with his world-record 183 not out - the best ever by a wicket-keeper -- against Sri Lanka in Jaipur Oct 31.
It was the world's sixth highest individual innings (jointly held by Sourav Ganguly), behind world record holder Pakistan's Saeed Anwar who smashed 194 against India at Chennai in 1996-97.
Dhoni's historic innings, during which he suffered bouts of cramps, was also the best ever by any player against Sri Lanka.
The Jharkhand stumper goes into the sixth one-dayer against Sri Lanka at Rajkot Wednesday hoping to better his brilliant statistics.
With this performance, Dhoni could be promoted to the Test team for the three-match series against Sri Lanka next month, ahead of Dinesh Kaarthick who currently keeps in the longer version of the game.
Since making his ODI debut against Bangladesh at Chittagong in 2004, Dhoni has played 24 matches and scored 791 runs with help of two centuries and two half-centuries.
However, what is remarkable is that Dhoni's career average, which was 37.53 after the second match against Sri Lanka at Mohali, catapulted to 49.43 in the next ODI three days later at Jaipur as he smote 10 sixes and 15 boundaries during his 145-ball blitz.
By way of comparison, Pakistan's Shahid Afridi has the world's second best strike rate with 108.20, Sehwag has 95.92 and Tendulkar 86.23.
In the best averages' list, the batsman behind Dhoni at third place, South Africa's Ashwell Prince, who has been picked to tour India this month, has 48.07, and Tendulkar (44.46) and Sehwag (31.90). The other hard-hitters are well below in the list.
Dhoni's rapidly growing fans brigade will now expect more fireworks from the diminutive stumper in the last two matches of the series against Sri Lanka and the five one-dayers that follow against South Africa this month.
