Chennai Super Kings (CSK) captain MS Dhoni returned to the team following illness and powered his side to a thumping 80-run victory over Delhi Capitals (DC) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) encounter on Wednesday. With his 22-ball 44 against Shreyas Iyer’s side at Chepauk, Dhoni earned his 17th Man of the Match award to go level with Mumbai Indians (MI) captain Rohit Sharma as the player with the most number of MoM honours in the history of IPL.
Dhoni came on the pitch after the dismissal of Faf du Plessis (39) when CSK were 87/2 after 13.3 overs. The Ranchi-born wicket-keeper batsman didn’t take long before getting accustomed to the nature of the wicket and started scoring boundaries much before he usually does. His 44-run knock, together with Ravindra Jadeja’s 10-ball 25 powered the Chennai franchise to 179 runs in 20 overs.
Other than being CSK’s second-highest scoring batsman in the match, Dhoni also inflicted two stumpings – of Shreyas Iyer and Chris Morris – and took the catch – of Amit Mishra – to contribute in a decisive manner from behind the stumps. The overall show earned him his 17th Man of the Match award, a feat that only Rohit has managed so far.
