As India completed a 5-0 whitewash of Sri Lanka in the ODI series on Sunday thanks to skipper Virat Kohli’s 30th century, former captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni achieved the unique distinction of reaching 100 stumpings in the ODI game.
He is the first wicketkeeper to achieve the mark and went past Sri Lankan Kumara Sangakkara in the process.
Dhoni achieved the landmark by stumping Akhila Dhananjaya off leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal’s bowling in the final ODI of the series played in Colombo.
stumpings in ODI cricket for @msdhoni! He's the first ever player to reach the landmark. #SLvIND pic.twitter.com/sV89BrZLVT
— ICC (@ICC) September 3, 2017
Incidentally, Dhoni’s first stumping dismissal came in his debut series in Bangladesh in December, 2004, off Sachin Tendulkar’s bowling.
The only other Indian in the top 10 list of most stumpings, is Nayan Mongia with 44 dismissals.
What makes Dhoni’s record even more laudable is he took just 301 matches when compared to 404 played by the former SL skipper Sangakkara.
In his 12 year-long career, Dhoni has had three matches where he got three stumping dismissals each.
In Tests and T20s, Dhoni has 38 and 23 stumping dismissals respectively.
Pakistan’s Kamran Akmal holds the record in T20s with 32 stumpings while the Test record is held by erstwhile Australian keeper Bert Oldfield with 52.
Dhoni had announced his retirement from the longest format of the game at the end of 2014.
Taking into account all the three versions of the game, Dhoni already leads the charts with 161 dismissals, followed by Sangakkara’s 139 and Kaluwitharana’s 101.
Besides the record stumpings, Dhoni also registered the most number of not outs (79) in ODIs and also joined the exclusive club of players to have played 300 ODIs.
Earlier this year during the IPL, Dhoni had pipped Sangakkara's record of 123 catches in T20 cricket.
Apart from most stumping dismissals in international cricket, Dhoni holds the record of being involved in six dismissals in an innings in ODIs.
While Sangakkara managed a total of 482 dismissals in a total of 404 matches, Dhoni has 383 in 301 appearances.