MS Dhoni
Rolling back the years, Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni, now 38, pulled off a spectacular catch at the fag end of Koklkata Knight Riders' innings at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday. With the catch, Dhoni surpassed KKR captain Dinesh Karthik to set an Indian Premier League record for most catches by a wicketkeeper.
In the penultimate delivery of the first innings, Dwayne Bravo delivered a length ball around off to tail-end batsman Shivam Mavi, who went in for the big one only to nick the ball off the outside edge. Dhoni dived full length to his right, but the ball slipped off his gloves, but sprung once again to his right to take the rebound and complete the dismissal.
With the catch, Dhoni surpassed Karthik to set the record for most catches by a wicketkeeper in IPL history. With a total of four catches in the match. Dhoni took his IPL career tally to 104 catches, standing one ahead of Karthik's 103.
Dhoni also completed a run-out in the last ball as CSK successfully folded KKR for 167.
Earlier in the evening, Rahul Tripathi scored a promising 81 in his debut innings as an opener for the franchise. KKR dropped Sunil Narine to No.4 and went ahead with Tripathi and Gill as their openers. Tripathi's early onslaught allowed KKR to post 53 for the loss of one wicket in the powerplays, their best score in the phase. Yet their batting issues continued as no other batsman crossed 17. Narine was used as a middle-order pinch hitter as he scored 17 off 9.
However, Shardul Thakur and Karn Sharma's middle-over brilliance and Bravo's impressive death-over returns helped CSK fold KKR for 167.
