At Wankhede Stadium on Sunday, MS Dhoni grabbed headlines with his sharp DRS call to dismiss Suryakumar Yadav early in the match. Later, towards the end of MI’s innings, Dhoni once again drew attention, albeit for a different reason.
On the last ball of the 20th over, bowled by Dwaine Pretorius, Hrithik Shokeen missed a delivery pitched just outside the off-side tramline, but still chose to challenge the call. While applauding Pretorius for the dot ball, Dhoni decided to walk off the field without waiting for the final decision.
He even had a brief exchange with Piyush Chawla, likely explaining his decision. Although the third umpire did not overturn the decision, Dhoni’s early exit from the field made him a topic of discussion on social media for the second time during the innings.
MI managed to score 157 runs with some useful runs coming from the last over. However, despite this, CSK will still be pleased with their performance, particularly their spinners who once again proved to be effective on a pitch that favored batting.
The pitch offered some resistance, but Santner and Jadeja did a great job in the middle overs, picking up a total of five wickets to cripple MI’s batting lineup. After starting off strong at 64-1, MI’s score slipped to 76-5, and even Pretorius, who bowled some fast off-cutters, was able to limit their pace.
Although Tim David struggled for rhythm, he managed to look dangerous after being dropped by Gaikwad, smashing Deshpande for 16 runs off his next three balls before falling to the last ball of that over.
MI managed to get over 150 runs thanks to some crucial boundaries by Hrithik Shokeen towards the end, but with Rohit, Ishan Kishan, and Tilak Varma failing to capitalize on their starts, CSK will still be considered favorites to chase down the target.