Friday Fights | The Big ODI fight - MS Dhoni vs Adam Gilchrist

02/21/2020

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In our first edition of the Friday Fight segment, we have a thriller for you. Of two men who not only dominated their time as the ‘absolute masters of their craft’ but also presented us with moments of outrageous brilliance. They never composed a simplistic binary - it was always a duality.

Duality that is so complex that more often than not, it is easy to forget the format that we are talking about. To simplify it further, we have brought this battle between two absolute giants, exclusively in the 50-over format. An aversion from normal analogy, we have excluded the not out scores below 20 in ICC events so as to keep a level playing field - that sometimes gets tampered over a short period of time.

MSD pins AG on the mat in career average fight

It is a facet that MS Dhoni wins single-handedly without any fight from the Aussie. A career average of 50.57 is 15 more than Gilchrist’s average of 35.89, justifying the eventual rating in no uncertain terms. There is influence of T20 batting and big bat either, because, mind you, average runs scored by the top-six batsmen in ODI cricket during the time Gilchrist played for Australia (31.01) is just one less than the corresponding numbers by MS Dhoni(32.07).

MS Dhoni - 10 Adam Gilchrist - 8

Dhoni lands sucker punch in away conditions

This metric also doesn’t provide too much of a difference, with big MSD winning again. 50.78 average against 35.01 is identical to the career aggregate fight. No prize for guessing, who won the battle.

MS Dhoni - 10 Adam Gilchrist - 8

Dhoni - the king of the ring at home

There you go. Boring you to death but the duo share another identical batting front with MS Dhoni winning again. True that it is because of 84 Not Outs that MS Dhoni conjured up in his career as compared to that of Gilchrist who had only 11 of his own but that evens out in the larger scale because Gilchrist got more game-time and more slack in the middle for the position that we was batting - opening as compared to Dhoni’s lower-middle over batting.

MS Dhoni -10 Adam Gilchrist - 8

Gilly fails to provide counter punch at neutral venues too

Sorry for bore you to death in this front too. MSD once again wins the race even though his average drops to 44.23 in the 78 games that he had played in neutral venues. On the other hand, Gilchrist has an average of 35.38, almost consistent as his home, away and career averages, but +9 can’t be ignored. Sorry, Adam.

MS Dhoni - 10 Adam Gilchrist - 9

Who aces the power-punch on big stage

As mentioned earlier, we have purposely kept the not out scores below 20 in the World events so as to keep a level playing field. While that was enticed to give Gilchrist a fair chance against a middle-order batsman, Dhoni has only remained unbeaten under 20 twice in the World Cup and ICC Champions Trophy events, so it wouldn’t be much of a difference. The number that comes out eventually for MS Dhoni is 32.24, as compared to Gilchrist’s 33.99. A very close contest indeed.

MS Dhoni - 9 Adam Gilchrist - 10

Never an Undercard

After an one-sided dominance by the former Indian skipper, here the fun begins. Definitely one of the best devastating hitters of the ball of his generation, Gilchrist soars over Dhoni fair and square. While the Indian hits at an S/R of 87.56, Gilchrist’s 96.94 puts him ahead and that takes the first 10-pointer by the Aussie legend.

MS Dhoni - 9 Adam Gilchrist - 10

Gilly saving himself with Peek-a-boo

In their illustrious careers, Dhoni has 83-plus scores to his name while Gilchrist has 71 but when it comes to conversions, the former Aussie opener is miles above the legendary Ranchi man. Dhoni converted 10 of them to centuries, but the Aussie manages to do that 16 times. The percentile conversion has a difference of more than 10, with Gilchrist doing it 22.53% of time as compared to Dhoni’s 12.04%.

MS Dhoni - 8 Adam Gilchrist - 10

Who lands the knock-out punch in 50s?

This is a battle that is too close, almost like the 2019 World Cup final. Gilchrist played in a team that hardly lost a game, where MS Dhoni’s side had seen its fair bit of hiccups on their way to glory. That reflected in this battle albeit in a subtle way - Dhoni scored only 44 50s in the winning cause as compared to Gilchrist’s 43, even though the Indian has 18 more ODI fifties than the Aussie. That said, it is a numbers game and I will side with the man with better numbers - MS Dhoni.

MS Dhoni - 10 Adam Gilchrist - 9

Will the 100s be any different?

That we had established that Gilchrist was a part of more wins than Dhoni, it was only understandable that the numbers will nod in affirmative. The 100s in winning cause further validates it as never ever a Gilchrist century resulted in a loss while Dhoni could lead the side to win in seven occasions out of the 10 times he raised his bat for reaching triple figure mark.

MS Dhoni - 8 Adam Gilchrist - 10

Slow attack or heavy punching?

The fact that both MS Dhoni and Adam Gilchrist came with their reputation of being the fine hitters, we projected the number of 120+ SR 50-plus scores and that settles a lot of debate. While Dhoni has done that 19 times in his ODI career and Gilchrist did that 26 times, beating the Indian to the post.

MS Dhoni - 8 Adam Gilchrist - 10

Who was flyweight in lighting the stumps?

While Gilchrist was one of the greatest catcher of the ball, Dhoni could take the honours of the most agile man behind the stumps that has ever been. Effective 123 stumpings, MS Dhoni not only rewrote the history books, but also left Gilchrist, who has done that 55 times, much behind.

MS Dhoni - 10 Adam Gilchrist - 7

Pouching behind?

In his 287-match career, the Aussie managed to take 417 catches behind the stumps, while MS Dhoni had 321 catches from 350 matches. The number itself tells the story. Gilchrist is the stand-out winner in this front.

MS Dhoni - 8 Adam Gilchrist - 10

Winner

This was a thriller, wasn’t it? As I count the eventual score, MS Dhoni (110) ends up with one point ahead of Adam Gilchrist (109) - emerging victorious by a whisker.

Hope you liked our new format of bringing players to the ring and make them face to face to find the best of the lot. Wasn’t it fun? I surely enjoyed this as we will wait for next Friday to have the next round of fight ready only on SportsCafe.