During the first match of the ongoing 16th season of the Indian Premier League between Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings in Ahmedabad, Chennai Super Kings captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni rolled back the time to play an effective cameo during the business end of the innings.
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Coming in to bat at No. 8 in the 18th over after Gujarat Titans captain Hardik Pandya won the toss and chose to bowl, Dhoni returned to the pavilion after scoring 14* (7) at a strike rate of 200 with the help of one four and six each to provide his team with a final push towards the 180-run mark.
Although the visitors couldn’t touch the mark despite looking set to even breach it at one point in time, 178/7 in 20 overs is a challenging innings total nonetheless.
Having ran three singles off the first three balls that he faced in representative cricket after more than 10 months, Dhoni hit GT fast bowler Josh Little for a six over deep square leg to provide his millions of fans with a memorable moment from IPL 2023 season opener.
A ball there to be hit around the off-stump, Dhoni timed it well enough to earn six runs. With Little erring with respect to his line on the following delivery, Dhoni played a similar shot through the same region for a four though.
Deceived by a slower ball from the left-arm bowler, Dhoni completely missed the penultimate delivery of the innings. The last ball saw him running another single towards the deep square leg region.
MS Dhoni Six Today
Most Sixes in IPL History
For the unversed, it is noteworthy that Dhoni is at the fourth position on the list of most sixes hit in the history of the IPL. Dhoni, who has hit 230 sixes across 207 innings, is behind the likes of Rohit Sharma (240), AB de Villiers (251) and Chris Gayle (357).
