MS Dhoni has several records to his name since he started his cricketing career. Yesterday, in the match against Lucknow Super Giants, the former Chennai Super Kings skipper added another career milestone. At the Brabourne stadium in Mumbai, ‘Thala’ began his innings with a six off the first ball. This was the first time in his IPL career that Dhoni slammed a first-ball six.
Dhoni scored an unbeaten 16 in the match, which included two boundaries as well. With this, he became the sixth Indian batsman to have scored over 7,000 runs in T20 cricket. Before MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Shikhar Dhawan, Robin Uthappa and Rohit Sharma have achieved this milestone. Watch the video of Dhoni’s first-ball six here:
Dhoni stepped up to bat after Avesh Khan had dismissed Shivam Dube for 49. CSK were galloping towards the 200-run mark and stood at 189/5 in 18.2 overs. With skipper Ravindra Jadeja at the other end, Dhoni slammed a big one off Avesh Khan in the third ball of the over. He followed it up with a boundary off the very next ball.
Although he failed to score off the final two balls of the over, the right-hand batter hit a boundary off the last ball of the innings to take CSK to a total of 210.
However, despite a mammoth total on the board, CSK lost the match by 6 wickets. Lucknow Super Giants were able to reach the target of 211 with ease, thanks to some power-packed performances by Quinton de Kock, skipper KL Rahul and Ewan Lewis. Lewis and Ayush Badoni slammed 25 runs off Shivam Dube in the penultimate over of the match. Lewis was declared the Player of the Match for his unbeaten 55 off 23.
With this match, LSG achieved their maiden victory in the tournament. CSK, meanwhile, have yet to win a match this year. In the tournament opener between Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings, KKR won the low-scoring match by 6 wickets. Dhoni scored an impressive half-century in the tournament, but the rest of the team was unable to perform well with the bat.