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After 65 balls and eight years, MS Dhoni finally achieves THIS feat against Sunil Narine

MS Dhoni finally hit his first boundary off Sunil Narine and it took him 65 balls to achieve the feat in the Kolkata Knight Riders vs Chennai Super Kings match in Wankhede.

By Siddharth vishwanathan | Apr 22, 2021 | 2 Min Read

For eight years and 65 balls, MS Dhoni had one epic struggle against one bowler. So much so, he could not even hit a boundary off him. Dhoni’s struggles against Sunil Narine are well-documented. Before the match at the Wankhede, Dhoni had not hit a single boundary off Narine after facing over 60 balls against him. However, in the match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings, that hoodoo was finally broken.

In the fifth ball of the 18^th over, Dhoni looked to thump a flighted delivery outside off. The Chennai Super Kings skipper went for the drive and got an outside edge. The ball sailed past Dinesh Karthik and he finally got a boundary. After a long wait, fans finally got to see Dhoni at least get a boundary off him. Dhoni promoted himself ahead of Suresh Raina and Sam Curran as he hit two fours and a six in his seven-ball 17. The one six came off Prasidh Krishna. Chennai Super Kings ended on 220/3, with Faf du Plessis the star with an unbeaten 95.

Big runs on the board

Dhoni stressed on the importance of getting a big score for Chennai Super Kings as the Kolkata Knight Riders batting was deep. In their chase of 221, Kolkata Knight Riders were reduced to 31/5 but Andre Russell, Dinesh Karthik and Pat Cummins made it close. Chennai Super Kings managed to win by 20 runs.

“My lines to the players was that we have got good runs on the board but let’s be humble. You don’t want to take too many early wickets. Big hitters coming in, 200 runs, there’s only one way they’ll play. Not much you can do,” Dhoni said.

Chennai Super Kings were laid a great platform by a superb opening partnership of 115 by Ruturaj Gaikwad and Du Plessis. Gaikwad, who had struggled in the previous matches, roared back to form with a brilliant 64 off 42 balls that included six fours and four sixes. Dhoni had nothing but praise for him. “Rutu is somebody who has shown his class in the last IPL. You always need to assess where he is mentally. Once when he was off guard, I just asked him how are you feeling today. When you put a question like that, you wait for the reactions, you see what’s in his eyes. There was enough in his reactions to suggest he wasn’t rattled,” Dhoni said.