MS Office: First Indian to lead in 200 matches, most ties too

MUMBAI: MS Dhoni’s surprise ascension as stand-in captain against Afghanistan saw him become the first Indian skipper to lead in 200 ODIS, but there was also an unexpected record added to his list with a thrilling tie.

His decision to quit captaincy in 50-overs cricket in January 2017 had left Dhoni at 199 matches as captain, in which he had won 110 and lost 74. But with the contest against Afghanistan as captain, Dhoni became only the third cricketer ever to have led his country in 200 or more ODIS.

Dhoni joined Australia’s Ricky Ponting (230) and New Zealand’s Stephen Fleming (218) in the list of captains in 200 or more matches. Dhoni is also the second best all-time captain with 110 wins, following Ponting (165 wins).

Ravindra Jadeja’s dismissal off Rashid Khan’s final ball in the contest saw Afghanistan ending their Asia Cup campaign with their first-ever tie, but for India, it was their fifth in this decade.

Each of India’s five tied ODI matches since January 1, 2011 has come under the captaincy of Dhoni. After Tuesday’s result, the world’s No 2 ODI team has also gone ahead of West Indies (four) with most tied matches in this decade.

India have tied twice with England — first in Bengaluru during the 2011 World Cup and then at Lord’s during their bilat- eral tour later in the year.

The other matches tied against India since the start of 2011 involved Sri Lanka (Adelaide, 2012), New Zealand (Auckland, 2014), and Afghanistan (Dubai, 2018).

In their ODI history, this was the eighth tied match played by India. Interestingly, these tied matches are spread across only two out of overall five decades of their ODI history.

Apart from two tied games against England in this decade, India also played a couple of tied matches against Zimbabwe — in Indore in November 1993 and in Paarl, South Africa, in January 1997. Dhoni also extended his record as the captain with most tied matches.

Dhoni, who on Tuesday was stand-in captain for Rohit Sharma — who is standing-in for regular captain Virat Kohli in Asia Cup — also became only the third man to lead India in ODIS in 2018.

Australia and West Indies have played nine tied games so far in history, followed by England, Pakistan and India with eight each.

Zimbabwe have played seven tied games, New Zealand and South Africa have six each, Sri Lanka have five, Ireland have three whereas the Netherlands, Scotland and Afghanistan have one tied match each in their record.

Brief scores: Odisha 249/4 in 48 overs (Samantaray 63, Senapati 59) bt Delhi 240 all out in 48 overs (Gambhir 44, Bhati 42*; Roy 2/37, Behera 2/25) by 9 runs; MP 136 all out in 45.5 overs (Jain 32; Unadkat 4/23, Jadeja 3/33) lost to Saurashtra 137/4 in 40.3 overs (Pujara 36 not out, Vasavada 38 not out) by 6 wkts; Railways 180 all out in 48.2 ovs (M Devdhar 64, A Sanklecha 2/16) lost to Maharashtra 186/3 in 41.4 ovs (R Gaikwad 84) by four wickets; Karnataka 237 all out in 50 ovs (R Samarth 102, A Sheth 4/42) lost to Baroda 230/3 in 43.3 ovs (K Devdhar 123, D Hooda 62*) by 7 wkts