What a career Dhoni had: Holding

New Delhi: West Indies fast bowling great Michael Holding praised the former India captain M S Dhoni for a "fantastic" career that has had in international cricket.

Dhoni on August 15 announced his retirement from internationals, thus calling the curtains on an illustrious career in which he led the Indian team to victory in the T20 World Cup, the World Cup and the Champions Trophy among a host of other titles.

"When he was captaining, you never saw him get excited. If things seemed to be slipping, he would call his players, have a chat calmly and then they would go back to wherever they were and things would automatically change, that was the kind of influence he had," Holding said in his YouTube channel.

Holding highlighted that Dhoni had nearly 5,000 runs in Test cricket despite being a wicketkeeper.

"What a career this man had, a fantastic one. He played 90 Tests, 350 ODIs and of course lots of T20s (98 for India and 190 in IPL). But let's talk about Test and ODIs. This man made almost 5,000 (4, 876) Test runs and remember, he's not a pure batsman, he's a wicketkeeper. Over such a long career to be able keep wickets and do such a fantastic job is commendable," he said.

"Not just in Tests, think about the ODIs. To be bending down for so many years, keeping himself fit through all these years. He has close to 11,000 (10,773) runs in ODIs and after facing just about 12,000 (12,303) balls that means he's scoring almost at a run-a-ball throughout his career. Of course in some matches we know he has scored at a better rate than a run a ball because he's such a powerful striker," said Holding.