Dhoni’s cameo powers India to a massive total

Ireland won the toss and decided to field first. India came out to bat with regular openers Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan.

There was a surprise in the selection as both KL Rahul and Dinesh Karthik were not a part of the playing XI. Instead, Manish Pandey who was not even included in the Sunrisers Hyderabad team towards the fag end of the IPL was given a chance ahead of them.

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Sharma and Dhawan started cautiously with the first over going for only one run. However, once the two had a hang of the situation, they started playing their strokes.

Dhawan was initially more aggressive than Sharma and slammed his way to half century. Rohit Sharma followed suit. However Sharma lived a little dangerously after a couple of catches being dropped. On the contrary, the first chance that Dhawan gave, he was caught.

It was surprise when Suresh Raina came out to bat at one down instead of skipper Virat Kohli. All the same, he could not leave an impact as the southpaw was dismissed after hitting a couple of boundaries.

Once MS Dhoni came out to bat, he had to swing at every ball. He hit a boundary towards backward square against Rankin on a short of length ball in the same over.

Dhoni backed it up with a huge six. It was overpitched delivery on the off stump which was met by Dhoni’s typical swing of the bat as the ball sailed over the side screen.

Unfortunately, on the second ball of the last over Dhoni was caught at mid wicket. However, the legend showed glimpses of what he is still capable of even at the fag end of his career.