On Tuesday night, former RPS skipper, MS Dhoni became the first player in the history of the Indian Premier League (IPL) to reach the IPL final for the seventh time. He has been able to make that record as the RPS outplayed Mumbai Indians at their own turf Wankhede stadium by a margin of 20 runs.
In the previous editions of IPL, Dhoni reached the final of the IPL as captain of Chennai Super Kings in 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2015. His former CSK teammates like Suresh Raina has appeared in six finals while Albie Morkel, Subramaniam Badrinath, and Ravichandran Ashwin have featured only in five finals each for the same franchise. It as been expected that CSK will surely be making a comeback next year after being banned for two seasons.
After winning the toss, MI skipper Rohit Sharma asked the RPS team to bat first. However, Pune lost two early wickets while batting first, Manoj Tiwary (58) and Ajinkya Rahane (56) anchored their innings well and added 80 runs for the third wicket before Dhoni, who was promoted to No. 5, demonstrated his class and launched an onslaught on the Mumbai pacers in the final two overs which helped the visitors reach 162 for 4 in 20 overs.
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The young off-spinner Washington Sundar then ran through the solid middle-order of Mumbai as he took three crucial wickets of Rohit Sharma, Ambati Rayudu, and Kieron Pollard. Mumbai kept on losing wickets at regular intervals from there on ultimately ending up 20 runs short of the target with a score of 142 for 9 in 20 overs. Shardul Thakur also the pick of the bowlers for RPS as he finished the match by taking three wickets while Lockie Ferguson and Jaydev Unadkat got one each.
In the 10th season of IPL, Mumbai and Pune locked horns for three times and RPS registered a win on all the occasions. The win has given RPS to win the coveted trophy in only their second season. After CSK, RPS became the only team to beat MI three times in a single season and heart of the fact is that Dhoni featured in both the teams.
During the league stages, Mumbai was leading the points table and as a benefit of that despite losing against RPS, they will remain in the contention and will meet the winner of the Eliminator going in between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders, in Qualifier 2 on Friday.
Earlier, Dhoni’s victorious innings of 40 off 26 balls was fastened with five sixes but no boundaries. He also built a crucial 73-run stand with Tiwary for the fourth wicket which shifted the momentum in Pune’s favor.
Considering Dhoni’s performances in playoffs, he has completed 437 runs in 15 innings at an average of over 44. Dhoni also loves to bat against the Mumbai Indians in this stage of the tournament. He has scored as much as 194 runs against MI in six innings in the playoffs at an average of over 51 with three half-centuries.
Dhoni has been a reliable batsman for Pune whenever he has batted in the No. 5 position this season. Before this knock, Dhoni had scored 119 runs at 39.66 and a strike rate of over 146 in the four times he has come out to bat in that position.
