Dhoni, Wrists and Hockey

Dhoni rocks in the careless way he strokes the ball-everywhere!
Dhoni's batting reminds me the batting style of Moin and Salim Malik!

Moin Khan has this really inimical way of dealing with fast-bowlers. Remember seeing the 1999 world cup match league stage match against Australia where he was just flicking Glenn McGrath to some really casual sixes off the legs into fine leg and deep square leg. Damn, of all the people Glenn McGrath is getting hit! The match was played in Oval where the square-boundaries are short, which also helped Moin's cause.
The best part about Moin's batting is his wristy sixes/fours to any given place in the ground. He makes any fast-bowler look like a spinner with his wristy-style. His late-cuts, wristy cover-drives and best of all the leg-flicks. He really looked awesome when he is in good form!

Salim Malik was also fantastic in his strokeplay, somewhat similar to Moin's or Azhar's game. Seems like Salim Malik and Azhar blossomed into their super-stars somewhat during the same period and got ousted from their teams also during the same period. Salim Malik's best knock according to me is the way he played Prabhakar in 1992 World cup against India in SCG, Sydney. Prabhakar had just come-in for a second spell in the 25th or 26th over.. and that was when Salim Malik was also new to the crease. Salim Malik played a classic wristy-cover drive and one amazing leg-glance for four. Prabhakar till then bowled his huge-inswingers. Now, after two fours of consecutive balls, he came back with a beautiful leg-cutter that foxed Salim Malik and Malik got caught behind. That ended his brave little cameo and also, Pakistan's chances of winning that match. But it was entertaining!
Another(totally unrelated sequence of events) instance where an Indian bowler was clubbed for two fours of consecutive balls and then came back to clean the leg-stump, was when Sachin bowled Lara in the 'Hero Cup final' in Eden Gardens in 1993. Sachin was bowling his slow medium pace and Lara on the other end was in pensive mood and blasted Sachin for two fours and in the third ball.. alas, Sachin let the leg stump take a walk with a rather fast-paced delivery and from then on, India went onto win that match.

Now, back to my original topic of dissertation of Dhoni. I think Dhoni is more of a complete stroke-maker better than Sehwag or Yuvraj. Sehwag cant play the ball properly if it is in the legs at a rather awkward length(short-ones) because he pulls or hooks in a rather ugly-fashion and he prefers to play most of the balls in the off-side. Yuvraj is more on the hard-hitting class, he plays more like a West-Indian batsman who prefers to punch the ball rather than just time it sweetly. Guess, nowadays most Indian or sub-continent batsman prefer to punch rather than use their wrists, just like how Azhar or Dhoni or Moin or Salim Malik or Miandad do. I think wristyness is kind of unique to sub-continent players and it is important to appreciate players like these.

Even in hockey, the sub-continent teams are revered for their wrist-work rather than for anything else. Skills like these are to be encouraged just like how we encourage other talents or art-forms!