MS Dhoni is, arguably, the smartest wicketkeeper in the history of the game. He has his unique way of collecting the ball where he minimizes the impact of the ball onto his gloves.
MS Dhoni’s gloves don’t move an inch backward when he collects the ball, which allows him to save a split-second extra as compared to the other wicketkeepers and cause some of the quickest stumpings.
Here are 5 of the smartest stumping by MS Dhoni:
Jonathan Trott
Jonathan Trott was a wristy player and he always had this tendency to clip the ball on the leg side the moment the bowler got a little bit straight in his line.
This was an instance in the 2013 Champions Trophy final where Dhoni asked Ravichandran Ashwin to deliberately fire the ball down the leg side.
Dhoni anticipated Trott to miss the line of the ball and that’s what exactly happened. Dhoni’s collection was neat as always, as he whipped the bails in a flash to send Trott to the pavilion.
Ian Bell
It was the same match where Dhoni showed a tremendous piece of wicket-keeping skills to stump Ian Bell out as well.
Bell missed an arm-delivery from Ravindra Jadeja and since the ball was turning quite a bit on that pitch, Dhoni’s natural instinct would have been to collect the ball on the off stump anticipating it to turn away from the right-hander.
But, Dhoni actually read the arm-delivery perfectly and collected the ball cleanly to take the bails off, while Bell’s back-foot was in the air as he was trying to get it inside the crease.
Sabbir Rahman
This was an instance in the T20 World Cup 2016 where Bangladesh seemed to be cruising while chasing a modest target set by India.
But, Dhoni pulled a breathtaking stumping off the bowling of Suresh Raina. It was not a great delivery at all and was down the leg side which the batsman missed, but just as the batsman tried to regain his balance, Dhoni stumped him out.
Dhoni actually waited for the batsman to lift his foot for a split second while regaining his balance and removed the bails at the exact right time.
Tamim Iqbal
In that same game, Dhoni stumped the Bangladeshi opener, Tamim Iqbal, out as well and those two stumpings went a long way towards changing the complexion of the game in India’s favor.
Tamim’s stumping was again difficult because the ball beat the inside edge of his bat and came between his bat and pad. The left-hander went down the track, but couldn’t get to the pitch of the ball and allow it to pass through the gate.
Dhoni was quick enough behind the stumps to move towards the leg side, collect the ball and take the bails off without wasting any time.
Keemo Paul
This was probably one of the fastest stumpings in the history of the game as MS took less than 0.1 seconds to remove the bails once the ball went past the batsman.
The bowler was again Ravindra Jadeja and it was his stock delivery which turned away from the right-hander.
As recorded, it took Dhoni just 0.08 seconds to complete that stumping, and Paul’s back-foot was found in the air by the Television umpire.
