cricket

Updated: Apr 20, 2020 16:58 IST

Former India skipper MS Dhoni has been enjoying a brilliant run of form in 2019 and it was evident once again in the first ODI encounter against Australia when he slammed a half century to guide the hosts to a comfortable victory.

In 2019, Dhoni has scored 301 runs at an average of 150.50, which is the best by any batsman this year. In fact, it is also the second-best average by any batsman in a year given a cutoff of 300 ODI runs.

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Dhoni’s record against Australia has also been quite impressive with four consecutive half centuries and 1600 ODI runs. Right now, the Indian cricket team veteran is the 3rd highest run-scorer against them. Also, he now has 13 fifty plus scores against Australia which is the second most by an Indian after Sachin Tendulkar.

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Dhoni also has the chance to add another accolade to his already illustrious career as he is just 33 runs away from becoming the sixth India batsman to score 17,000 runs across all formats.

The other batsmen who have achieved the feat are Sachin Tendulkar (34,357), Rahul Dravid (24,208), Virat Kohli (19,453), Sourav Ganguly (18,575) and Virender Sehwag (17,253). In his career which spans over 14 years, Dhoni has scored 4,876 runs in Tests, 10,474 runs in ODIs and 1,617 runs in T20Is.

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When it comes to the venue of the second ODI - VCA Stadium in Nagpur - Dhoni’s fans have a reason to rejoice further. Dhoni has scored 268 runs in 5 games and that is the most for any batsman at the venue. India skipper Virat Kohli stands second with 209 runs from four games.

Of the 268 runs that the former skipper has scored at the venue, he has two centuries to his name. While he scored the first one against Australia in Oct 2009, the second one came against Sri Lanka in December 2009. Apart from that, he has scores of 12* against South Africa and 25* against Australia in 2013.