India need 25 runs in 10 balls. MS Dhoni, arguably the greatest finisher the white-ball game has seen, is on strike. Two balls ago, he had slapped Lockie Ferguson for a massive six over backward point. The finisher, though on his wane, has still got a billion eyeballs on him and is looking set to take India into the 2019 World Cup final.
But. It all changed….A billion hearts broken, AGAIN. By who? Martin Guptill, who had had a poor World Cup with the bat and had really done nothing of note. Until then.
Until he fired in a throw, running in from deep square leg, and hit the stumps at the striker’s end with a direct hit, catching MS Dhoni short – only by about 15 centimeters – as Dhoni was sprinting in to complete his second run.
The whole of India doesn’t like me: Martin Guptill
Martin Guptill goes into folklore as the man who broke the Indians’ hearts, who got even the ever-super-fit MS Dhoni run-out.
It’s four years on from that semi-final in Manchester. India have suffered heartbreaks in five more ICC tournaments since then, but Martin Guptill, who has even retired from international cricket, continues to get hatred-filled emails from some Indians.
Martin Guptill is currently in India to participate in the Legends League Cricket, a tournament for internationally retired cricketers.
Recalling that run-out of MS Dhoni, the Kiwi batter said: “It’s one of those things that happened so quickly in the moment. All I remember was I saw the ball go up and I then I thought, oh no, it’s coming sort of more towards me. So I put the skates on to get on with that run. I knew there was no chance of a throw at the stumps, but I just tried to have a shot and only had one and a half stumps to aim at and I just got lucky. The stars aligned, and it was a perfect throw.
“In other words, the whole of India doesn’t like me. I get plenty of hate mails from there,” he was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.
.
