Dhoni's month of milestones continues

Indian wicketkeeping living legend MS Dhoni continues to make headlines in a month of milestones as he prepares for his final game of the UK tour in Tuesday's decider against England in Leeds.

In the past fortnight, Dhoni has ticked off a litany of limited-overs milestones to underline his status as an icon of the game.

At Lord's he passed the 10,000 ODI run barrier, becoming the fourth Indian and 12th man in all cricket to reach the milestone. He is the only one of the 12 to average more than 50, with a current mark of 51.30 from 273 ODI innings (with 78 not outs).

In the first innings of the Lord's match, Dhoni held his 300th ODI catch, to be just the fourth man ever to reach that milestone.

That wicketkeeping milestone came after he passed 50 catches in T20 cricket earlier in the tour, including becoming the first man to hold five catches in a T20 match.

Dhoni joins Sri Lanka great Kumar Sangakkara as the only players to have completed the ODI double of 10,000 runs and 300 catches.

The Sri Lankan legend is the second-highest ODI run-scorer with 14,234 career runs and 482 dismissals, including 383 catches and 99 stumpings.

This UK tour has also seen Dhoni pass the 500 international games mark. Tuesday's third ODI against England will be his 321st ODI to go with 90 Tests and 93 T20 internationals for India.

Dhoni's 10,000 ODI runs milestone came in India's defeat to England at Lord's as the wicketkeeper made an uncharacteristically sedate 37 off 59 balls with just two fours as his side's run chase faltered around him.

India were 4-140, needing a further 183 runs in 23 overs to reach their target of 323, when Dhoni walked out to bat at Lord's.

Dhoni's innings was met with boos and slow hand-clapping from the Lord's crowd, but India captain Virat Kohli was quick to defend the former skipper.

"This comes up again and again when he is not able to play in the normal way he does," Kohli said.

"It's very unfortunate people just jump to conclusions very quickly.

"When he does well, people call him the best finisher ever and when they don't go well, they all pounce on him.

"We all have bad days in cricket and today was a bad one for everyone, not just him.

"Also, you want to take the innings deep; you don't want to just lose by 160-170 runs, and he has the experience, but some days it just doesn't come off.

"Other people jump to conclusions, but we don't - we totally believe in him."

India bowler Yuzvendra Chahal defended the 37-year-old's approach by saying: "Because later on there were only me, Siddarth (Kaul) and Kuldeep (Yadav), so it wasn't like two or three batsmen were remaining.

"I think throughout the series Dhoni hasn't batted, so this was a chance to get a knock. Because if he had hit a shot and gotten out, maybe we couldn't have batted all 50 overs."

India were bowled out for 236 off the last ball of the match as England won by 86 runs to level the three-match series at 1-1 ahead of Tuesday's finale at Headingley.