Happy birthday MS Dhoni: Legendary cricketer's greatest on-field calls as captain
Former world cup winning India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni turned 40 on Wednesday and the international cricketing body the ICC used the occasion to remind fans why he is dubbed as 'Captain Cool'. The ICC shared a video clip on Twitter of MSD’s greatest calls as India's captain.
The video displays some of Dhoni’s well known instances as a skipper, starting with him throwing the ball to the unheralded Joginder Sharma instead of Harbhajan Singh during the final of the 2007 T20 World Cup. Joginder ended up taking Misbah-ul-Haq's wicket and the men in blue won the championship.
The clip also showed the moment when Dhoni took off his keeping glove and ran towards the wicket as the Bangladesh batsmen ran a tight single off the last ball in the 2016 T20 World Cup. Bangladesh was in need of just three runs to win of the last three delivery. But Indian all-rounder Hardik Pandya had a different plan as he dismissed Mushfiqur Rahim and Mahmudullah off successive deliveries.
Bangladesh required just three runs to win off the last ball and the delivery was a wide one which the batsman failed to connect. They went for the run anyhow and Dhoni sprinted towards the stumps rather than throwing the ball there and took the bails off before the runner got to the crease.
There’s a reason they call him Captain Cool 😎
— ICC (@ICC) July 7, 2021
On his birthday, relive some of MS Dhoni’s greatest calls as @BCCI skipper 👨✈ pic.twitter.com/8nK5hvTuWM
In the same tournament, MS Dhoni gave Virat Kohli a rare over to bowl when the men in blue desperately needed a wicket against the West Indies. Virat Kohli delivered, and took a wicket of the opener Johnson Charles but India went on to lose that contest.
The clip also shows arguably the most important decision of Dhoni’s career, when he decided to bat ahead of Yuvraj Singh in the final of the 2011 World Cup against Sri Lanka in Mumbai. MS Dhoni ended up hitting an unbeaten 91 and clinched the title for India with a massive six.
MS Dhoni stepped down as skipper of the team in all formats in 2017, passing the baton over to Virat Kohli. MSD played his last match for India in the semi-final of the 2019 World Cup against New Zealand and retired from international cricket on August 15, 2020.
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First published: 7 July 2021, 14:42 IST