Former India opener Gautam Gambhir who played a bulk of his international cricket under MS Dhoni's captaincy said that world cricket missed witnessing MS Dhoni continuing to bat at No. 3, as the former opening batsman felt that the wicketkeeper-batsman would have been a 'completely different player' as a top-order batsman.
Gautam Gambhir said that had Dhoni continued batting at No.3 for India instead of going on to become the captain of the Indian cricket team., he would have the 'most exciting cricketer'
While the hard hitting Dhoni made his first major impression with his clinical ball striking as an aggressive No. 3 batsman, Dhoni played just 16 ODIs at the top-order spot, notching up 993 runs at a staggering average of over 82 and a strike rate of close to 100. Majority of his 10,773 ODI runs came at No. 5 and No. 6 as Dhoni went on to become a calm and calculated finisher after taking over the mantle of captaincy.
"Probably world cricket has missed one thing... that is MS (Dhoni) captained India and did not bat at No. 3. Had MS batted at No. 3, probably world cricket would have seen a completely different player," Gautam Gambhir told Star Sports 'Cricket Connected'
"Probably he would have got many more runs, broken many records. Forget about records, they are meant to be broken. He would have been the most exciting cricketer in the world had he not captained India and had he batted at No. 3.
"MS Dhoni batting at No. 3 on flat wickets with the quality of bowling attack now in world cricket... look at Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and West Indies in the current situation, with the quality there is no international cricket, MS Dhoni would have broken most of the records."