As the match between Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) reached near to its conclusion, which is also very famously known as the MS Dhoni territory of the last couple of overs, fans rushed onto the Jio Cinema app to watch their hero bat one more time. The mass legions of MS Dhoni fans thronged, virtually, on the live telecast of the CSK-RR match. Jio Cinema recorded its peak viewership of 2.2 crore views when MS Dhoni was batting in the last over vs RR.
“JioCinema’s viewership peaked 2.2 crore when he and Ravindra Jadeja were batting in the last over of the Chennai Super Kings vs Rajasthan Royals match in IPL 2023,” said a report in latestly.com.
With 21 runs needed off the last over, in the chase of 176, the fans hoped for their Thala to make another successful run-chase. The 41-year-old sent them into raptures as he smoked Sandeep Sharma for a couple of sixes on the legside to bring the equation down to a more plausible 7 runs off 3 balls. However, Sandeep kept his cool and conceded only 3 singles off the last 3 balls to win RR the game by 3 runs.
MS Dhoni remained unbeaten on 32 off only 17 balls
The 41-year-old is giving his fans something to cheer loudly about in what is all but certain to be his last IPL season.
Here is how the fans reacted to this record breaking by MS Dhoni on Jio Cinema:
Highest peak viewership on JioCinema for IPL 2023:
2.2cr – CSK Vs RR.
1.8cr – RCB Vs LSG.
1.7cr – MI Vs DC.
1.7cr – CSK Vs LSG.
1.6cr – CSK Vs GT. pic.twitter.com/clISCv8xEp— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) April 12, 2023
Jio Cinema Viwership picked 2.2 crore when Dhoni was batting in last over.
📸: JioCinema#Cricket #CricketTwitter #IPL2023 #CSKvsRR #MSDhoni𓃵 pic.twitter.com/Bwpf9kPVtI
— CricInformer (@CricInformer) April 12, 2023
2 crore mark breached on JioCinema 🔥 pic.twitter.com/i5cBPKk86F
— Trendulkar (@Trendulkar) April 12, 2023
After the match, the CSK skipper, MS Dhoni, lamented the lack of strike rotation by the CSK batters during the middle-overs phase, especially against the three experienced RR spinners – Chahal, Ashwin, and Zampa.
“I think in the middle overs we needed a bit more strike rotation, there wasn’t much for the spinners but they had experienced spinners and we could not rotate strike. It was not that difficult and the ownership (of the loss) should come from the batters,” MS Dhoni said in the post-match presentation.
After CSK lost Gaikwad early, scoring only 8 runs, Shivam Dube (8 off 9) and Moeen Ali (7 off 10) struggled to get going while Conway (50 off 38) was a bit too slow. Only Ajinkya Rahane (31 off 19) provided some impetus after the early loss of Gaikwad, but he couldn’t bat deep today as he did against MI. Eventually, it was left a bit too much for MS Dhoni and Jadeja to do.
