Follow UsMahendra Singh Dhoni or MS Dhoni or MSD or Captain Cool, you can address the legendary India captain however you like, but the fact that will remain intact is that he is the best finisher the game has ever seen and the best captain India have ever produced. It stays true for the Indian Premier League (IPL) as well, where he has been elevated to godly status for his home team, Chennai Super Kings (CSK).
Thala, as he is popularly known, will be turning up for yet another season this time around in the IPL and even after turning 43, he is one of the most feared batters at the death. More than any other team, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) will know it better, as they have been on the receiving end of Dhoni’s terror with bat quite a few times.
Here are three instances when Dhoni owned RCB single-handedly in IPL history.
The best Dhoni knock that anyone can remember against RCB has to be his unbeaten 70 off just 34 balls in IPL 2018 at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. Chasing 206 to win, Chennai were 74/4 when Dhoni joined Ambati Rayudu in the middle. The duo added 101 off just 53 balls and all of a sudden CSK became favourites.
Even as Rayudu got out, the leader of the yellow brigade continued as he added an unbeaten 32 for the sixth wicket with Dwayne Bravo to take the team over the line with two balls to spare.
Dhoni hit a four and seven gigantic sixes to send the crowd at the Chinnaswamy into delirium.
In the very first edition of the IPL, Dhoni, fresh from being captain of India’s successful T20 World Cup campaign in the inaugural edition, showed that he is the most dangerous batter in the league and rightly deserved the huge price that was paid to him.
In that match at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on April 4, 2008, Dhoni hit 65 off just 30 balls, one of the rarest achievements at that point, because batting with a strike rate of over 200 was not common at all.
Thanks to this knock from MSD, Chennai posted 178/5 and won the match by 13 runs.
From 2008, it's time to head to 2014, another year where Dhoni was coming off a great international achievement- a first Champions Trophy title for India (which was not shared with any other team).
In the match at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore (now Bengaluru), Dhoni hit an unbeaten 49 off just 28 balls as Chennai chased down 155 with ease, with Dhoni finishing things off in style, with a six as the winning shot.
This was probably his best against the RCB, but it came in a losing cause. He hit 84 off just 48 balls, but was not able to take his team over the line. Needing 36 off 12 to win, Dhoni denied singles to Bravo and was criticised badly.
In hindsight, one can say even one of the three singles that he denied in the 19th over would have pushed the game at least to the Super Over. However, what he did in the 20th over against Umesh Yadav was out of the world. Needing 26 to win, he hit the first five balls for 24 runs with three sixes, a four and a double in pure Dhoni style.
One of the sixes even went out of the stadium and, as a CSK fan, one couldn’t have asked for something better than that. But Umesh suddenly bowled a great last ball and Dhoni missed connecting it. Shardul Thakur was run-out trying to run a bye. Parthiv Patel, with a direct hit, complemented his fifty to get the Player of the Match award.
Had that game been won, Dhoni’s cult status, which is still the best in world cricket, would have just blown out of this world.