On a night Mahendra Singh Dhoni was subject to a huge criticism for his sedate batting, he also rewrote many records, becoming the fifth fastest batsman to reach 10,000 ODI runs.
India suffered a 86-run defeat to England as Dhoni played a snailish innings of 59 ball 37, yet in the process he became the fourth Indian and 12th overall to complete 10,000 runs in the One-Day format.
The former Indian captain achieved the feat in the 273rd innings of the 320th match, making him the fifth fastest and second in terms of the number of balls faced to reach the landmark.
In terms of innings played, only Sachin Tendulkar (259), Sourav Ganguly (263), Ricky Ponting (266) and Jacques Kallis (272) are ahead of him.
Meanwhile, former Sri-Lanka skipper Sanath Jayasuriya is the only batsman to reach the mark in fewer balls than MS Dhoni.
Also Read: MS Dhoni becomes fourth Indian to score 10000 runs in ODIs
The 37-year-old is also the second wicketkeeper-batsman after the legendary Kumar Sangakkara to reach the 10,000 run milestone.
Dhoni unlike Sangakkara has however played all of his 320 ODI matches as a wicketkeeper. He also became the third oldest at 37 years and 7 days to complete 10,000 runs in One Day internationals. Tillakaratne Dilshan and Brian Lara are the first two in the list of oldest batsman to reach that figure.
Also Read: Joe Root’s ton helps England level series 1-1
Tendulkar with a tally of 18,426 runs still leads the table of highest One-Day runs. Sangakkara (14234) and Ponting (13704) follow him as the second and third.
While Jayasuriya (13430), Mahela Jayawardene (12650), Inzamam-ul-Haq (11739), Kallis (11579), Ganguly (11363), Rahul Dravid (10889), Brain Lara (10405) and Tillakaratne Dilshan (10290) are the other batsman with 10,000 or more ODI runs.
But Dhoni is the lone batsman among them to reach the mark with an average over 50 in the ODI’s. His average stands at 51.30.
India next play England in the series decider game at Leeds. The three-match series is tied at 1-1.