Chennai Super Kings' (CSK) match against Punjab Kings (PBKS) in the ongoing IPL season on Sunday (April 3) marked the legendary MS Dhoni's 350th T20 match. With this he became the second Indian cricketer after Mumbai Indians' skipper Rohit Sharma to play as many matches.
Rohit leads the list with 372 T20 matches while CSK's former star southpaw Suresh Raina remained third as he played 336 T20 matches.
Dhoni, who passed over the captaincy baton of CSK to Ravindra Jadeja, has so far played 222 T20 matches in the Indian Premier League while he has represented India in 98 T20 Internationals. And in 300 of those matches he featured as a skipper, which remains the highest ever in T20 cricket.
Starting their IPL 2022 campaign with consecutive losses, CSK now look for winning ways. Dhoni hit a fine unbeaten half-century, but a top order collapse meant it was not enough and the Shreyas Iyer-led team chased down the 132-run target with relative ease.
Then, against Lucknow Super Giants, Dhoni smashed 16 not out off six to provide a strong finish once again for CSK, as they posted a total of 210/7.
Meanwhile after the first innings on Sunday, twenty20 nomad Liam Livingstone justified his Rs 11.50 crore price-tag with a smashing 32-ball 60 but CSK came back strongly at the death to restrict Punjab Kings to 180 for 8 in an IPL match.
CSK gave away only 71 runs in the back-10 with a lot of credit going to their troika of overseas pacers, Dwaine Pretorius (4-0-30-2), Dwayne Bravo (3-0-32-1) and Chris Jordan (4-0-23-2), who used variations to good effect, stifling the opposition batters.
In fact, bulk of the 55 dot balls came in the second half of the Punjab innings.
Livingstone, one of the most destructive T20 batters across global leagues, finally came good with five fours and an equal number of sixes, sending the CSK bowlers on a leather-hunt during the initial overs.
Deepak Chahar's absence has severely handicapped 'de-facto' captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni's options as rookie left-arm seamer Mukesh Choudhary (4-0-52-1) paid dearly for his inexperience coupled with jangling nerves.
There were 100 metre plus sixes off length balls and Livingstone would often shimmy down the track to disturb the length as he did with the wily Bravo. Even the thick edges went for six with CSK bowlers looking clueless till he was there at the crease.
In fact, Bravo, under pressure, forced Dhoni to stand up to the stumps in order to prevent Livingstone from charging down the track.
'On paper' skipper Jadeja (4-0-34-1) finally got his man caught at short third-man but even he looked ordinary with no help from the flat Brabourne Stadium deck.
Livingstone and Shikhar Dhawan (33 off 24 balls) added 95 for the third wicket in just 8.4 overs and it seemed that another 200 plus total was on the cards.
