Former Indian skipper, MS Dhoni was always known for unorthodox decisions on the cricket field and that made him one of the most uniques captains of all-time. He had surprised the fans of Indian cricket when he handed over the ball to then all-rounder Joginder Sharma in the final over of the 2007 T20 World Cup final match against Pakistan.
However, the decision eventually emerged as a masterstroke as Misbah-ul-Haq was dismissed in the over, and the men in blue when on to register their maiden World T20 win. The former India captain, who recently decided to hang his boots from international cricket had predicted one more instance in the same match and it was recently revealed by the former pacer, RP Singh.
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In the match played on September 24, 2007, Dhoni had asked the fast bowler to have control only on his line and length as Kamran Akmal was set to get out bowled. RP Singh was asking for a different field but the captain was adamant about his idea saying that Akmal’s feet were not moving.
Recalling the incident during a chat with Cricket.com, RP Singh said, “For me, it was during the T20 World Cup final in 2007 that I got the sense he is a very special kind of a player. He was not the same Dhoni I had been interacting with. If you look closely, MS didn’t have any defining batting performance in that tournament but he was always there, almost in every match.”
He further elaborated, “MS told me in advance that Kamran Akmal would be bowled as his feet were not moving. He asked me to forget about other things and just concentrate on bowling line and length. I realized that he had got a tremendous reading of batsmen because I would have bowled differently to Akmal. I had asked for a different fielding set-up. But he convinced me in a way it was easier to follow.”
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In the nail-biting final at Johannesburg, India successfully went on to defend a target of 158 runs and defeated Pakistan by 5 runs in the final over.