Even at the age of 40, MS Dhoni remains one of the finest wicket-keepers in the country. Dhoni, who though stepped down as CSK’s skipper, continues to play as a keeper-batsman.
He shut down his doubters in style on Saturday evening against KKR in the IPL 2022 season’s opening game at the Wankhede Stadium with a brilliant 50-run knock off 38 balls after coming into to bat in a difficult situation and took CSK to a fighting total. It was a typical MS Dhoni knock: slow at the start, gets his eye in, assesses the conditions and targets his bowlers, before unleashing mayhem in the death overs.
He, however, suffered a little blip in his wicket-keeping today as he allowed 4 byes off Shivam Dube’s bowling. It was already turning out to be a poor over from Dube and Dhoni letting off four runs further made it expensive so much that Dube didn’t bowl another over in the innings.
Dwayne Bravo had broken KKR’s opening pair, dismissing Venkatesh Iyer, in the sixth over. Defending a low total of 131, CSK needed to tighten the screws with an economical seventh over. However, Dube had already conceded two boundaries to Nitish Rana on his first four balls. And on the fifth, Dube managed to beat Rana with a slower ball, however, Dhoni failed to get his legs in the line of the ball and let it pass by his side for four byes.
Now, this was clearly a rare mistake made by Dhoni who has garnered a reputation as one of the best wicket-keepers to have played the game. In fact, as a tribute to his glovemanship, a stat was revealed by commentator Harsha Bhogle when he was on air at the time Dhoni conceded these four buys.
Bhogle, while commentating, revealed that Dhoni has in his entire IPL career of 14 seasons now only conceded 84 runs as byes – that is only 6 byes per season!
Harsha Bhogle said “Just 84 runs through byes by MS Dhoni in 14 IPL seasons”.
— Johns. (@CricCrazyJohns) March 26, 2022
Speaking about the game, KKR registered a comfortable win, chasing down 132 inside 19 overs and with 6 wickets in hand after their bowlers had done a desired job. Umesh Yadav was Man of the Match for his terrific new ball spell in which he dismissed both CSK openers, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Devon Conway. Chakravarthy and Narine kept things tight before Dhoni unleashed his shots in the final three overs to take CSK to 131, which, though, didn’t prove enough for Bravo and co. to defend.
Also Read: Suresh Raina Asked A Direct Question To His Fans After The First Match
