- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
Former India wicket-keeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni is regarded as one of the best cricketers and captains that the sport has produced. The cricketer, who still plays the Indian Premier League at 41, was known for his athletic wicket-keeping and match-finishing skills.
However, former Pakistan captain Rashid Latif, who was also a gloveman in his playing days, has come up with an interesting observation about the legendary Indian cricketer’s keeping skills.
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According to Latif, Dhoni’s stats as a wicket-keeper show that he had a very high dropping percentage compared to some of his contemporaries.
“Dhoni was a batsman-wicketkeeper. Obviously, Dhoni is a very big name. But if I go into stats, his dropping percentage is 21 percent, which is huge, huge,” the former Pakistan captain said on his official YouTube channel.
Sparing his own records saying the stats to measure the success of wicket-keepers came much later, Latif said, “You can’t use my record because this particular record came into being from 2002 or 2003. We had already played by then. Adam Gilchrist had percentage of only 11, Mark Boucher was very good. Australia’s Tim Paine started well but towards the end dropped a lot of catches.”
Latif, who recently said that Pakistan would be better starters against India at the upcoming Asia Cup clash later this month because the latter had stability issues with captaincy, took the name of former Australia wicket-keeper Ian Healy saying he was one of the best he had seen mainly because of his handling of Shane Warne in subcontinent tracks.
Among the gloveman of the current times, Latif has a high regard for South Africa’s Quinton de Kock.
“If you look at the best in last 15 years, then I would say Quinton de Kock is superb, has kept in all three formats and batted at the top of the order in white ball cricket,” he added.
Latif effected 350 dismissals in 203 games across all formats that he played between 1992 and 2003. Dhoni, on the other hand, effected 829 dismissals in 538 matches, trailing only Mark Boucher (998) of South Africa and Gilchrist (905) of Australia.
