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Ricky Ponting VS M S Dhoni

Thala_0710

State 12th Man
Dhoni better imo tho. Has a much balanced home and away record, Arguably had a more important role to play with the bat.
Could say so and I think I would have Dhoni higher than Ponting if he played in the top 3-4 more imo. I find it hard to rate Ponting below people like Bevan/Dhoni because Ponting batted at 3, set the tone of the innings, played at a good SR and avged pretty well too. Dhoni/Bevan's avg are a boosted bit by not outs and Dhoni doesn't have the greatest SR either which you could expect in his position in his era. Still all of them are top 10 for me easily and although finishing is really important to the team, I edge it to the top order players
 

Victor Ian

International Coach
I'm not wanting to diminish Dhoni, but I'm always left wondering why that role is not given to the best batsman in the team. Beven wasn't the best batsman for the Aussies though he was best at that role. Why doesn't Kohli bat lower? Why didn't Tendulkar? I'd wager runs up the order win more games than those down the order.
Finishers need starters.
 

Victor Ian

International Coach
Could say so and I think I would have Dhoni higher than Ponting if he played in the top 3-4 more imo. I find it hard to rate Ponting below people like Bevan/Dhoni because Ponting batted at 3, set the tone of the innings, played at a good SR and avged pretty well too. Dhoni/Bevan's avg are a boosted bit by not outs and Dhoni doesn't have the greatest SR either which you could expect in his position in his era. Still all of them are top 10 for me easily and although finishing is really important to the team, I edge it to the top order players
I must have been channeling your post.
 

Thala_0710

State 12th Man
The only difference with Dhoni is though that he was batting exceptionally at no 3 and 4 and definitely had the ability to do so for the rest of his career. If he had done that, he might arguably have been the greatest odi batsman ever, but he sacrificed his position for his team. Hence, I could see an argument for Dhoni more than Bevan, but I have to go by what actually happened in his career rather than hypotheticals.
 

capt_Luffy

Cricketer Of The Year
The only difference with Dhoni is though that he was batting exceptionally at no 3 and 4 and definitely had the ability to do so for the rest of his career. If he had done that, he might arguably have been the greatest odi batsman ever, but he sacrificed his position for his team. Hence, I could see an argument for Dhoni more than Bevan, but I have to go by what actually happened in his career rather than hypotheticals.
I beg to differ. I don't think I will place any opener bar SRT above Dhoni and Bevan. Very few will. Why is that? These guys challenged the norm and revolutionised the game. Batting down the order, you also have a much higher chance of throwing your wicket away trying to score faster, as you get less and less opportunities to score runs. Batting down under, you are basically doing anything the team requires. It's not why Kohli didn't bat lower or Dhoni didn't bat higher; they batted at positions they were the most efficient at. It's the team's requirement imho.
 

sayon basak

International Debutant
Dhoni has an average of 102.71 in won chases, with 2800+ runs and a fair number of not outs, which shows he usually guided the team till the end when required.

Some may say his average is boosted because of a lot of not out knocks, but he must be given credit for not throwing his wicket away more often, just how capt_Luffy said.

Dhoni also played 16 matches at no. 3 and averaged 86.7, which suggests he could pile up runs up the order, but did what his team needed from him.

It's not actually - "finishers need starters" but the team needs both of them to do their job.
 

Thala_0710

State 12th Man
I beg to differ. I don't think I will place any opener bar SRT above Dhoni and Bevan. Very few will. Why is that? These guys challenged the norm and revolutionised the game. Batting down the order, you also have a much higher chance of throwing your wicket away trying to score faster, as you get less and less opportunities to score runs. Batting down under, you are basically doing anything the team requires. It's not why Kohli didn't bat lower or Dhoni didn't bat higher; they batted at positions they were the most efficient at. It's the team's requirement imho.
I agree mostly, but neither Dhoni or Bevan batted that fast. And yes both batting positions are important but I would still give the edge to top 3 batsmen, and yeah I'd have only Sachin over Dhoni as well in openers
 

Bolo.

International Captain
I agree mostly, but neither Dhoni or Bevan batted that fast. And yes both batting positions are important but I would still give the edge to top 3 batsmen, and yeah I'd have only Sachin over Dhoni as well in openers
Dhoni was very fast early career by the standards of the time. He slowed a lot later and the game got quicker, but he was still quick on the whole.
 

capt_Luffy

Cricketer Of The Year
I would like to guess you have your top 100 ODI bats list done.....
ODIs I find significantly tougher to do than Tests, but nevertheless:
  1. Viv Richards
  2. Sachin Tendulkar
  3. Virat Kohli
  4. A B de Villiers
  5. M S Dhoni
  6. Michael Bevan
  7. Zaheer Abbas
  8. Dean Jones
  9. Ricky Ponting
  10. Rohit Sharma
  11. Brian Lara
  12. Saeed Anwar
  13. Michael Hussey
  14. Babar Azam
  15. Sanath Jayasuriya
  16. Hashim Amla
  17. David Warner
  18. Ross Taylor
  19. Gordon Greenidge
  20. Aravinda de Silva
  21. Adam Gilchrist
  22. Kumar Sangakkara
  23. Mark Waugh
  24. Sourav Ganguly
  25. Greg Chappell
  26. Jos Buttler
  27. Andrew Symonds
  28. Martin Crowe
  29. Lance Klusener
  30. Javed Miandad
  31. Clive Lloyd
  32. Yuvraj Singh
  33. Tilakratna Dilshan
  34. Matthew Hayden
  35. Kane Williamson
  36. Chris Gayle
  37. Quinton de Kock
  38. Faf du Plessis
  39. Desmond Haynes
  40. Mahela Jayawardene
  41. Glenn Turner
  42. Inzamam-ul-Haq
  43. Shane Watson
  44. Jonny Bairstow
  45. Shikhar Dhawan
  46. Damien Martyn
  47. Joe Root
  48. David Miller
  49. Mohammad Azharuddin
  50. Shivnarine Chanderpaul
  51. Herschelle Gibbs
  52. Travis Head
  53. Glenn Maxwell
  54. Kevin Pietersen
  55. Arjuna Ranatunga
  56. Jacques Kallis
  57. Shai Hope
  58. Allan Lamb
  59. Angelo Mathews
  60. Nathan Astle
  61. Heinrich Klaasen
  62. Salim Mallik
  63. Hancie Cronje
  64. Martin Guptill
  65. Steve Smith
  66. Aaron Finch
  67. Eoin Morgan
  68. Andy Flower
  69. Ramnaresh Sarwan
  70. Gary Kirsten
  71. Virendra Sehwag
  72. Marcus Trescothick
  73. Jason Roy
  74. Michael Clarke
  75. Roger Twose
  76. Carl Hooper
  77. Misbah-ul-Haq
  78. Ben Stokes
  79. Ryan ten Doescharte
  80. Graham Gooch
  81. Neil Fairbrother
  82. Darren Lehmann
  83. Rahul Dravid
  84. Mohammad Rizwan
  85. Darryl Mitchell
  86. Rassie van der Dussen
  87. Richie Richardson
  88. Dennis Amiss
  89. Graeme Hick
  90. Upul Tharanga
  91. Brendon McCullum
  92. Nick Knight
  93. Devon Conway
  94. Alec Stewart
  95. Mohammad Yousuf
  96. Jonathan Trott
  97. Neil Johnson
  98. Kapil Dev
  99. George Bailey
  100. Tamim Iqbal
 

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