A day after drawing curtains on his 15-year-old international career, all eyes were on Kieron Pollard during Mumbai Indians’ match against Chennai Super Kings on Thursday.
MI fans thought that the Caribbean all-rounder would find his mojo back with this game soon after his innings began. But CKS’s former captain MS Dhoni rewrote the script and produced a masterclass in the death overs that sent Mumbai Indians to their seventh defeat straight in the ongoing Indian Premier League.
MS Dhoni smashed a six and four off third and fourth ball off Jaydev Unadkat before maintaining his calm to put one past short-fine leg for the match-winning boundary, leaving the bowler and the rest of his Mumbai teammates shattered. Sportzpics
CSK and Dhoni fans were thrilled to see how their favourite player finish off the game in his trademark style. He made 16 runs in the last over and got the team’s second win of the season with an unbeaten 28 in 13 balls to his name.
Apart from Dhoni’s trademark shots, Pollard’s dismissal in the death overs of the MI innings garnered a lot of interest.
In the 17th over, spinner Maheesh Theekshana had the ball in his hand. Dhoni knew that Pollard would look to hit some massive shots against the Sri Lankan spinner because he had done the same in his previous over by hitting a six over long-on.
So, before the delivery could take place, Dhoni made some changes to the field. He placed the tallest fielder near the long-on boundary straight down the ground. To everyone’s surprise, the trick worked and the ball fell straight into the hands of the fielder (Shivam Dube) standing there. The former West Indies player somehow managed to make 14 runs off 9 deliveries before walking off.
Minutes after the MI batter got dismissed, cricket experts, former cricketers and fans heaped praise on their favourite player – Dhoni. Among the many tweets, former India cricketer Wasim Jaffer and industrialist Anand Mahindra’s posts won hearts on social media.
Jaffer, who is known for his witty posts, shared an interesting one this time too. In his first post, he congratulated Dhoni for his gameplan in dismissing Pollard.
“Kids use same barber for 10+ years. Adults use same dp for 10+ years. Legends use same gameplan for 10+ years,” Jaffer wrote.
His second post is a video, showing how Dhoni helped CSK to win the match against MI.
And the third is a clip for the Bollywood film Andaz Apna Apna.
Industrialist Anand Mahindra was also seen hailing the former CSK captain. Post the win, he drew a parallel between Dhoni’s name and the name of his company – Mahindra Group.
Check his post here:
Soon, the industrialist’s post went viral and the official handle of CSK replied to his tweet.
Check the interaction here:
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