To most of us, the Indian Premier League is a sensational contest, where more often than not, the bat dominates the ball.
Then there are those among us for whom the world famous T20 league is about soaring strike rates and sky rocketing sixes.
The importance of Dhoni’s MI knock
But if you were to understand the intricacies of that format of the game that’s about rabid uncertainty, then maybe you’d come to know that the IPL is also about cameos whose true value perhaps can’t ever be fully measured or assessed.
Cameos that are pulsating in nature and defined by blazing sixes of the nature that a certain Mahendra Singh Dhoni a few hours ago at Mumbai’s Wankhede ground.
Right upto the moment leading to the start of a contest dubbed El Classico – Mumbai Indians hosting the Chennai SuperKings- there were several concerns raised about MS Dhoni’s batting position.
The general feeling of some of the cricket experts coupled with that of dollops of T20 loyalists was that perhaps there wasn’t enough time on Dhoni’s hands by the time he arrived onto the middle.
The change of position and its rich reward
Positioning himself at the lower middle order of one of the much loved and famed IPL franchises, by the time MS Dhoni would arrive into the middle – as seen in Chennai’s previous IPL 2024 contests- he would hardly get himself even four or three full overs to face.
However, that was just one of the issues that a game centred around mega fan entertainment faced.
Maybe there were oodles of fans according to whom Dhoni placing himself or being placed behind Ravindra Jadeja was just a plain, unimaginative idea. Maybe drab even.
However, the sights on April 14, 2024 revealed something else. It was proven that if the think-tank, including the captain, coach and maybe even a key player or two from a franchise approached a game a bit differently, then drastic results could be sought and very much achieved.
And so one saw Mahendra Singh Dhoni walking out into the middle at the very fag end of Chennai’s innings, but interestingly, ahead of that of Ravindra Jadeja.
Flying sixes from the bat of Thala
And the results of this change, which hitherto hadn’t even achieved, were rather remarkable.
In the context of a pivotal T20 clash, it was akin to opening the inning with a slow left arm spinner especially with the surface being slow.
On the one hand, while there could be some who’d still reckon that Dhoni indeed got too few deliveries to face; all he ever faced against the Mumbai Indians were four deliveries. That’s about it.
But on the other hand, the tiny tinkering with the batting order with an exceptional world class hitter stationed ahead of perhaps not the most enormous hitter of the cricket ball brought home precious results for Chennai, the game’s eventual winners.
Could it be argued and even defended that in the end the difference between the two side’s results was, in fact, Mahendra Singh Dhoni himself?
Dhoni in the final over
Putting those long levers at play and executing three back to back sixes on the bounce, the loud chants in favour of MS Dhoni somewhere matched the resounding echo of his name at the time the legend had walked out to bat.
A few hours ago, Dhoni was the best version of himself; brute, brilliant and brave.
It was as if he was held back by nothing. Not even his opposite number in the camp, a big name of the game called Hardik Pandya.
In a game where hitting sixes is pretty much a loved sight and something the fan quite likes to see, here was Dhoni hitting regular sixes at, arguably speaking, the most precarious over of an inning: the final over.
Emerging triumphant and unbeaten in the end with a strike rate of 500, Dhoni in a single instance reminded us the powers of concentration and the sheer love for hitting.
Just the sort of occasion that justifies the mind bending fandom he’s the proud beholder of. Also a very worthy reminder that for someone who’s perhaps mentioned that this might well be his final season as a cricketer, MS Dhoni is still fit as a fiddle and going strong.
But maybe nothing could be as vital as the fact that Dhoni’s 20 vital runs, which is precisely the margin with which Chennai usurped Mumbai, came in the icon’s 250th IPL inning for his CSK.