Mahendra Singh Dhoni is inarguably one of India’s finest finisher in the shortest format but there is one little piece of statistic which the ‘Captain Cool’ wouldn’t certainly be amused and would like to change it during the course of fifth ICC World T20.
Believe it or not, the captain is yet to score his maiden half-century in T20 internationals having donned the blue jersey in 43 of the 46 matches that India has played so far.
Sounds weird but Dhoni’s aggregate of 772 runs is most by any batsman without a single fifty in T20 Internationals.
Incidentally, his highest score is 48 not out against Australia in a losing cause at the ‘Stadium Australia’ in Sydney.
Interestingly, during that particular match, Dhoni was batting on 45 after the completion of the penultimate over but to his utter dismay found that Ravichandran Ashwin consumed four of the six deliveries.
In the remaining two deliveries, he scored three runs to get to 48 not out as India lost by 31 runs.
Dhoni has mainly batted at No. 5 or 6 (13 times each) in the T20 internationals which effectively meant that on most occasions, only few overs were left. A testimony to that is remaining not out on 16 occasions out of the 40 times that he went into bat during those 43 games.
The three games that he had missed out were when his jaded body needed rest. He opted out of the 2010 tour of Zimbabwe where India played two T20 internationals under Suresh Raina’s captaincy.
The other T20 game that he missed was during India’s tour of West Indies in 2011 when he had opted out of the limited overs series (T20’s and ODis) having played World Cup and IPL back-to-back in four months of gruelling cricket.
In the list of most runs without a single half century, Dhoni is followed by South African all-rounder Albie Morkel (521 runs), Gary Wilson (Ireland, 510 runs) and the prolific Hashim Amla (413 runs).
Australia’s wicketkeeper-batsman Brad Haddin (373) and West Indian captain Darren Sammy (347) are also in that top-10 list.
New Zealand’s Brendon McCullum with 1959 runs to his credit from 64 T20 internationals, is the highest scorer in this format. He is followed by Lankan legend Mahela Jayawardene with 1335 runs to his credit.
Only 13 batsmen so far have scored more than 1000 runs in the T20 internationals but none of the Indians are in that ‘Elite List’.
Out-of-favour opener Gautam Gambhir is India’s highest scorer in the format with 932 runs in 32 matches.
Hero of India’s 2007 World T20 and 2011 World Cup triumph, Yuvraj Singh (868 runs) and Suresh Raina (859 runs) are second and third respectively, in the list of highest scorers among Indian batsmen.
India’s premier all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja is yet to score a half-century in either of T20 internationals as well as domestic tournaments like Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 and Indian Premier League.
As far as the T20 concerned an another Indian Ravindra Jadeja has scored most runs without a fifty. In 108 T20 matches, Jadeja scored 1278 runs but his highest score is 48.
