5 Instances where MS Dhoni showed his smartness on the field

1. Chennai Super Kings vs Kolkata Knight Riders in Chennai, 2008

Chennai Super Kings began the inaugural season with back to back wins and so did the Kolkata Knight Riders. The two sides faced off at the Chepauk stadium in the 11th match of the league phase. Brendon McCullum struck 2 fours and 2 sixes during his 12-ball 24 while Wriddhiman Saha made 27 off 16 balls after KKR elected to bat first. The Knight Riders were going close to 11 runs an over in the powerplay.

But the CSK bowlers pulled back the things to reduce the visitors to 98/6 by 15th over. Laxmi Ratan Shukla began to take control with a couple of boundaries towards the end. He struck back to back boundaries on first two balls of the 20th over as KKR inched closer to 150. Joginder Sharma nailed a yorker on the penultimate ball of the KKR innings which Shukla failed to connect.

The Bengal player didn’t move out of his crease but the non-striker Ishant Sharma went down to the other end in hope of finding a bye. The CSK skipper MS Dhoni threw the ball to Joginder but insisted not to take the bails off. Dhoni found Shukla moving out of the crease and found a chance of running out the all-rounder instead of Ishant. Shukla patted the back of the pacer for sacrificing his wicket for the team cause.

In this while, Ishant crossed over Shukla and was past the crease at the striker’s end. Soon, Dhoni signalled his teammates to get the bails off at the bowler’s end. Parthiv Patel stepped in and forced Joginder to break down the stumps which brought an end to Laxmi Shukla’s 33-ball 42. Ishant, who was the striker for the last ball, collected a couple as KKR finished with 147/9 in the 20 overs. Super Kings chased down the target by losing only one wicket and with three overs to spare.