You can never write MS Dhoni off. Having retired from Test cricket at the end of 2014, he has committed himself to the shorter formats for India and for his Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise. But a very lengthy 2016-17 Test season led to Dhoni being away from the spotlight, therefore coming into the 2017 IPL a bit short on match practice.
In February, Rising Pune Supergiant (RPS) dropped a bombshell on the eve of the auction, announcing that Steve Smith would replace Dhoni as captain. After a very disappointing 2016 IPL season, the franchise was out to fix things by making changes at the top, and this move was perceived as Dhoni being ‘sidelined’, a sign that his days as a professional cricketer were slowly coming to an end. Added to this was the debate over whether his skills as a batsman were also on the wane.
More specifically, his skills as a finisher. In his heyday, Dhoni was one of the best finishers in the limited-overs game, even sending yorker-length deliveries for six with his signature ‘helicopter shot’. But even Dhoni’s tried and tested ‘safety first and attack later’ approach was getting outdated, given how the limited-overs game has evolved in such a short time. Batsmen nowadays are not always allowed the luxury of consuming too many deliveries to get set, before attacking.
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In one-day matches, Dhoni’s strike rate began to dip, as he was finding it increasingly difficult to accelerate. This was also partly due to the fact that the pressure on him had increased since India didn’t have other younger players capable of finishing innings like the way Dhoni used to. So during the home one-dayers against New Zealand last year, he promoted himself to No. 4 and the move proved a masterstroke when he scored a matchwinning 80 in Mohali. It was the Dhoni of the old and fans were happy. Dhoni said after the game that the promotion to No. 4 helped him express himself better at the crease, in the absence of pressure.
But soon after the IPL began, the Dhoni-bashing resumed. Even his franchise didn’t spare him. Harsh Goenka, brother of RPS team owner RP Sanjeev Goenka, tweeted after Pune’s first match about how Smith had overshadowed Dhoni as a batsman and that it was a “great move to appoint him captain”. This tweet, coming after Smith scored 84, didn’t go down well with Dhoni’s fans and it was up to the man himself to prove his team owners wrong.
It took a while to get his mojo. In Dhoni’s first five innings this season for RPS, he managed 61 runs, but off 73 balls – certainly not the best by Dhoni’s standards. But on Saturday, against Sunrisers Hyderabad in Pune, the old Dhoni was back again.
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RPS’ target was 178 and they were in the game thanks to Rahul Tripathi’s 59. When he was dismissed in the 14th over, RPS needed 79 off 41 balls. Dhoni had walked in in the 11th over and had enough time to get his eye in before attacking. A flat six off Siddharth Kaul got him going, but the pressure on RPS began to tell after a good over from the young fast bowler Mohammad Siraj yielded only six runs. RPS needed 56 off the last four overs.
It became 46 off the last three and Sunrisers clearly had the upper hand. But Dhoni quickly wrested the initiative RPS’ way. He punished Siraj, biffing a slower ball down the ground for six. Siraj tried to mix things up by bowling it short, but he made the mistake of bowling it too wide, allowing Dhoni to smash it over the off side field.
Even the experience and swing of Bhuvneshwar Kumar couldn’t silence Dhoni. The ball was reverse swinging and Dhoni found ways to improvise, going deep in his crease and flicking it to the leg side for four, knowing that fine leg was inside the circle. Bhuvneshwar bowled one really wide outside off and Dhoni was able to slice it over the off side for another boundary. A yorker length ball was bashed flat over long-on for six. It was all raw power.
It came down to two needed off the last ball and Dhoni sealed the win with fierce drive for four past mid-off.
Dhoni silenced his biggest critic, who was humble enough to tweet this after the match.