Four years ago on this very day MS Dhoni, with his brilliant match awareness and super speed, dashed the hopes of millions of Bangladesh cricket fans as he ran out Mustafiqur Rahman to knock the Tigers out of the World T20 in 2016. India was hosting Bangladesh in a crucial group match at the M Chinnaswamy stadium and had managed to register a below-par score of 146 for 7 after being asked to bat first.
Bangladesh bowlers came out all guns blazing Mustafizur Rashim and Al-Amin Hossain picking up two wickets each. Suresh Raina (30), Virat Kohli (24) and Shikhar Dhawan (23) were the major three contributors for the Men in Blue while the rest of the batsmen failed to put bat on ball.
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During the chase, Bangladesh got off to a good start courtesy Tamim Iqbal’s patient 35 from 32 balls. Sabbir Rahman (26) and Shakib Al Hasan (22) then got them closer to the target. The equations came down to the Tigers requiring 11 runs needed from 6 balls, all-rounder Hardik Pandya was bowling the final over as R Ashwin (2/20), Ravindra Jadeja (2/22), Jasprit Bumrah (0/32) and Ashish Nehra (1/29) had completed their full quota of overs.
Mahmudullah was on strike with Mushfiqur Rahim at the other end and were backing themselves to finish the job and help Bangladesh win their first match against India in the shortest format. Mahmudullah took a single from the first ball before Mushfiqur dispatched Hardik for a couple of boundaries to bring the equation down to 2 runs from 3 balls and they had started celebrating.
With the match in their hands, it was Bangladesh’s game to lose and that is exactly what happened as Pandya got the wickets of removed both batsmen with his next two deliveries. With 2 runs required from 1 ball, Pandya had deliver the hat-trick ball to From a winning position, Bangladesh was first hoping to get a run and take the match into a Super Over to stay alive in the tournament.
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Hardik bowled a short ball outside off-stump which Shuvagata missed. Dhoni, who had removed his right glove to be able to throw properly, collected the ball and made a dash for the stumps instead of attempting a direct hit. Dhoni took off at unbelievable speed (some even compared it to Usain Bolt) and removed the bails off the stumps, beating Mustafizur by a few inches in a photo-finish.
The on-field umpires sent the decision upstairs but the Indian players were already started celebrating. The third umpire then confirmed the run out to trigger deafening celebrations at the Chinnaswamy as India won by a run to stay alive in the tournament.
Here are the highlights of the match:
