With a couple of quick boundaries to support Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni looked well set for the final over, where Chennai needed 17 runs to qualify for the playoffs. "It got a bit close, at one stage, with MS there, I thought, oh dear, he has done it so many times," Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain Faf du Plessis later exclaimed after the match. Facing the first ball of the final over, Dhoni smashed the low full toss from Yash Dayal for a 110-metre six that hut the roof over fine-leg fence. The RCB bowler, however, bounced back heroically in the next five balls, dismissing the former CSK captain and conceding just one run as the hosts continued their fairytale ride to the playoffs with a 27-run win.
Following the loss, as RCB players burst into wild celebrations in front of their home crowd, and were almost awestruck at their own accomplishments of scripting a six-match winning streak to move from the bottom of the table to the playoffs, while Chennai players were left in sheer agony, a theory emerged among a few fans on social media that it as Dhoni's six that inadvertently cost CSK the match.
Du Plessis revealed after the match that the plan was to bowl the yorker against Dhoni. However, since the ball was wet due to the rain in Chinnaswamy, it slipped out of Dayal's hand and ended up being a low full toss, with Dhoni punished for a massive six. With the ball getting lost in the crowd, it had to be changed, leaving Dayal with a drier replacement ball, thus allowing him to shift back to his strength of bowling the slower ones.
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The six did spark hopes among CSK fans across the globe while the RCB crowd at the Chinnaswamy were silenced. The finisher is "definitely not" finished after all. But all ended in an anticlimax for the Chennai fans. Dayal dismissed the CSK legend on the second ball of the over and left Jadeja and Shardul Thakur struggling in the next four deliveries as RCB sealed a thrilling 27-run win in the final league game and make the playoffs.
{{/usCountry}}The six did spark hopes among CSK fans across the globe while the RCB crowd at the Chinnaswamy were silenced. The finisher is "definitely not" finished after all. But all ended in an anticlimax for the Chennai fans. Dayal dismissed the CSK legend on the second ball of the over and left Jadeja and Shardul Thakur struggling in the next four deliveries as RCB sealed a thrilling 27-run win in the final league game and make the playoffs.
{{/usCountry}}Speaking to his teammates in the dressing room, RCB wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik called Dhoni's six the best thing that happened to the side. “MS Dhoni hitting that 110M six outside the Chinnaswamy was the best thing that happened, it gave us a new ball which helped us,” he said.
Dhoni's shattered look in CSK dugout during those final three balls hinted that he had seen the inevitable. And as it struck, the former captain avoided shaking hands with RCB players as he walked out of the field.
The question that remains is - have we seen the last of Dhoni in IPL?