MS Dhoni played a small but ferocious knock with the bat against DC and guided his team to its 10th final in the Indian Premier League’s history. DC skipper Rishabh Pant committed a small mistake by giving the final over of the innings to Tom Curran instead of Kagiso Rabada, the best death bowler in the world. And, Ricky Ponting clearly said if you commit a mistake against MS Dhoni then you will have to pay a hefty price for it.
MS Dhoni stepped onto the field against Delhi Capitals when CSK lost three consecutive wickets just after the 2nd strategic time-out. Everyone expected Ravindra Jadeja to come out and bat at number 5. But, like always MS Dhoni tricked the opponent by promoting himself in the batting order. The former skipper unleashed his beast mode by collecting boundary on his 2nd delivery of the game.
Ricky Ponting says MS Dhoni will go down as one of the best finished of cricket history
In the final over, CSK lost the important wicket of Moeen Ali, and clouds of defeat were hovering over the head of former IPL champion. But, MS Dhoni had some different plans. He smashed back to back three consecutive boundaries off Tom Curran and finished the game for his side.
Later on Ricky Ponting, the head coach of DC said that team didn’t played as per the plans. As per him, MS Dhoni is a player, who will make you pay a big price for a single mistake in the game and the same happened in qualifier 1. The former legendary Aussie skipper claimed that once MS Dhoni will hang his boots from cricket then he will be remembered as one of the best finishers in the history of cricket.
“We probably didn’t execute as well as we needed to him, and you know that if you miss, he is going to make you pay. He has done it for a long time now and I think our bowlers just missed their areas a little bit. I think when he is retired he will be remembered as one of the greatest finishers the game has ever seen,” said the former Australia captain.
Ricky Ponting asserted that he didn’t know why Rishabh Pant asked Tom Curran to bowl the final over instead of Kagiso Rabada. But, he well supported his skipper for going with his inner gut.
“I haven’t asked the captain that yet. Those calls are made on the field. Tom had bowled really well before that and done a good job so it’s down to the gut feel of the captain out in the middle. Rishabh obviously thought that Tom was the right man to bowl that last over on the back of how he had bowled in the game. It didn’t pay off for us, it will be a good learning process for Tom, how he can work better at closing that lasts over out,” said Ponting.
DC head coach looked pretty much optimistic to discuss all the negatives and positives of the match with the players and skipper in order to perform well in qualifier 2 of IPL 2021.
“We will have a debrief with the players and certainly have a chat with the captain about all the tactics because that is what we generally do. Win, lose or draw, we dig pretty deep into what we have done on the field and see if there is anything we could improve,” he said.
Delhi Capitals lost the qualifier 1 by 4 wickets against Chennai Super Kings. But, they still hold a chance to qualify for the final by winning the qualifier 2 that they will play against KKR or RCB depending upon the outcome of the eliminator.
