AHA! Now you decide if an Australian or an Indian -> my friends would say. He had planned to write the article after Dhoni retires. But I can’t take the wait anymore. Mirror Mirror on the wall. Who is the best finalist of all? Well, aside from all that, the only real contestants who are called the greatest one-day cricket finalists of all time are Michael Bevan and Mahendra Singh Dhoni. No, don’t make the mistake of comparing them as cricketers because Dhoni with his versatility will win hands down. Just compare them as ODI finalizers. That’s what I’m going to do today. I came up with some interesting facts and statistics as I did so.
Let’s first list some deserving candidates even if they are not in the same league as these two specialists. Some of them are Lance Kluesner, Virat Kohli, Sachin Tendulkar, Mike Hussey, AB De Villiers and VIA Richards, arguably the best one-day hitter of all time. He and Sachin will say no, we don’t need a finisher. We can finish the match long before the overs are completed with the resources available at the other end. But that’s another story and another breed of hitters.
By runner-up, do we mean a hitter who doesn’t get left out at the end when an inning ends? No. I mean the batter who finished the game and won it for his team is the best runner-up. In most cases, such an inning will result in the batter not being left out at the end. But there are many innings where the batter had practically finished it before leaving. Sachin Tendulkar in Sharjah in 1998 against Australia played two magic innings of the century, one to propel India to the final and the second to win the final for India. It appeared in both entries. But he was finishing of the highest quality and did the job for his country very effectively. And this is where Bevan and Dhoni come into the picture. They made a real difference when their teams cared most. And they did it many times. This fact alone makes the light of day clear between them and others.
The best qualities of the MS Dhoni is that he is calm with everything when everyone in the stadium and watching the game on television are about to have a heart attack. This was also the case for Michael Bevan. But Bevan had solid hitters accompanying him during his time, like the Waugh brothers, Damien Martyn, etc. Dhoni also benefited from these hitters at the other end, but more towards the end of his career. They were both outstanding runners between terrains. More than that, they were excellent race judges. They knew when to turn a single into two and a two into three, and also when not to risk it. This greatly increased the pressure on the opposition. Not only did the limits keep coming, but the race between fields killed the party for the opposition.
One area in which Dhoni excels is that of big shots. He can hit six and Bevan, on the other hand, was not a great hitter. He could hit if necessary, but not with the same consistency as Dhoni. In my opinion, that is the real difference between the two. Bevan has won as many games for his team as Dhoni did but with strokes and shoves more than Dhoni’s controlled punches. A finisher needs temperament and they both had it. I say “were” even though Dhoni is still around. But I think we’ve seen the best of him.
Most Indians will be targeting his career hit rate to tip the balance in Dhoni’s favor, but Bevan played in a slightly different era where hitters didn’t score at the same pace as today, aside from the Tendulkars, Waughs and Laras. , obviously. And the teams did not accumulate the same totals as today. So this stat doesn’t do Bevan justice. They both have great batting averages over 50. They absolutely killed the opposition with an exquisite finish. No matter how they did it, running or hitting, it was clinical.
Dhoni’s ending is about his ability to do both: big punches, shoves and shoves, and run like a hare. Additionally, Dhoni played in an era where a lot of cricket was played and had to perform multiple roles in T20, ODI, Testing and IPL. This alone is exhausting. Whereas Bevan played ODI cricket basically along with top notch matches and a bit of test cricket. Definitely less stress than compared to modern cricketers like Dhoni. Maintaining fitness in such cases is very difficult. Dhoni has accomplished this, but Bevan struggled towards the end of his career with a series of fitness issues.
Michael Bevan hit No. 4 or 5 when he designed those great finishes while Dhoni at 5-6. This is mainly because Dhoni would take more risks than Bevan and due to the high price of his window, there must have been a tendency to push him down the order within the team direction, although this is conjecture. Although Dhoni’s most famous innings, the 2011 world cup final, had him playing at number 4. It was exciting to see the great cricketer clinically finish the final with poise. And he finished it all with a six. That was like putting an exclamation point on the match and the world cup !!
Most of the deadly cricketers in this world panic when the difference between the number of balls left and the runs to get them starts to spiral out of control, but not these two. It was amazing to see them stay calm and go about their work as if it were everyday chores. What these guys are made of can be seen with a finish that no one else can repeat so many times. Many great cricketers have graced the game and many of them have played stellar roles in their teams’ victory. But finish victorious matches for your teams so many times? No, nobody! These two just can’t be defeated because of it.
Bevan was part of two world cup winning teams in 1999 and 2003. Notably, Australia was at the top of their game when playing ODI cricket and was in their prime. Dhoni won the only ODI WC victory for India in 2011, although he is still playing and I am sure he is regarding the 2019 World Cup as his last hurray.
Bevan has the highest batting average for a retired ODI cricketer of 53.58, while Dhoni is averaging 51.37 at the moment and will finish around 50. This also does not indicate any clear advantage for Bevan because Dhoni would take more risks and as a result, they have a better hit rate than Bevan, who will average slightly better. Both played and won games playing with tail and many times. Words cannot describe how amazing it was to see these men do it over and over again.
Another critical point that goes against Dhoni are the fields in which he played. Bevan played on big Australian grounds that make hitting sixes difficult, while Dhoni hit at a time when the game was tailor-made for hitters and in Indian conditions that have always been hitter-friendly. Though Bevan hails from an era of Australian domination when the team was on a roll, Dhoni broke the Indian habit of being bad hunters. That is truly your greatest achievement for your country. It is not an insignificant achievement, let me tell you, as I have watched Indian cricket since the 1980s and this had turned into a minor crisis back then.
VERDICT
I’ve tried hard not to compare them as cricketers in general and talk about Dhoni’s captaincy or Bevan’s left arm spinning bowls. They were like bonuses for their teams. Nor am I going to discuss Bevan’s test record, as it is again irrelevant to the topic. You can compare your stats all you want, all day. In the end, you will find them balancing each other. But despite considering everything, I still cannot ignore the huge difference in the strike rate. There are 15 points and I think that is the real and overwhelming difference. Do I need to say more?
