Mahendra Singh Dhoni - a textbook modern wicketkeeper

Keepers have to bat. Keepers have to bat aggressively. If your side have lost early wickets, you come in and counter-attack. If your side is going well, you come in and drive home the advantage.

There was some textbook driving home of the advantage yesterday from Mahendra Singh Dhoni as he spanked, whopped and carted 92 runs off 81 balls. There were 65 balls for the first 50, then he picked up the pace a touch.

This textbook outlining how wicketkeepers should drive home the advantage is quite new and some of the diagrams aren't finished yet, because it's kind of tricky to capture exactly what Mahendra Dhoni does a lot of the time.

Like when he plays shots with both feet off the ground. People who illustrate cricketing textbooks have trouble coming to terms with things like that. They like rigid, wooden cricketers whose bodies describe sharp right-angles when they play shots. They like short hair too.

The only downside to Mahendra Dhoni's innings, as far as we can see, is that he made Sachin Tendulkar look sedate and old. We're not a fan of that.

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England v India, third Test at The Oval, day two
India 664 all out (Anil Kumble 110 not out, Mahendra Singh Dhoni 92, Dinesh Karthik 91, Sachin Tendulkar 82, Rahul Dravid 55, VVS Laxman 51, James Anderson 4-182)
England 24-1