A half-century still eludes Dhoni in T20 international

One of India’s finest finisher in the shortest format is yet to score his maiden half-century in T20 Internationals

This December 25, 2012 file picture shows India’s M.S. Dhoni returning to the pavilion after his dismissal during a T20 match at Chinaswamy Stadium in Bangalore on Tuesday.

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.