MS Dhoni
MS Dhoni (Credits: IPL/ Twitter)

Chennai Super Kings, on Sunday, suffered a heartbreaking loss to Royal Challengers Bangalore. Their skipper MS Dhoni had nearly taken them to a miraculous win but the Royal Challengers managed to eke out a thrilling one-run win. Chasing a modest 161, Chennai Super Kings had started disastrously and were reeling at 28 for 4 when Dhoni joined Ambati Rayudu in the middle.

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The veteran batsman displayed his experience by calmly bailing the Super Kings out of trouble with a fifty-plus stand with Rayudu. However, the Royal Challengers struck back by removing Rayudu and Ravindra Jadeja in quick succession to reduce the visitors to 108 for 6. Dhoni then decided to take the onus on himself to take his side over the line. The equation was finally down to 26 from the last over.

And Dhoni started in stunning manner. Facing Umesh Yadav, he collected 24 runs from the first five balls  of the 20th over. With two runs needed to pull off a heist and one to tie the game, Dhoni missed the ball and Parthiv Patel then ran Shardul Thakur out from behind the stumps. Dhoni remained on unbeaten on 84 from just 48 deliveries with the help of 5 fours and seven sixes.

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The one-run defeat, however, has raised questions on MS Dhoni’s decision to refuse as many as three singles in the 19th over.

While it would be wrong to question Dhoni’s heroics in the game, the same cannot be said about his decision. Perhaps the result could have been different had Dhoni not refused to take the singles. What is even more baffling that he refused to take the single even though Dwayne Bravo was standing at the other end. Well, Dhoni explained the reason behind his decision after the game.

MS Dhoni Explains Decision To Refuse Three Singles In 19th Over
MS Dhoni (Credits: IPL/ Twitter)

Dhoni said the nature of the surface meant it was difficult for a new batsman at the crease to play big shots. The skipper suggested that Bravo would have found the going difficult too.

“I think it was still difficult at the death,” Dhoni said.  “If you bowl that back of a length it was slightly spongy, it was not really coming on to the bat, which meant the new batsman who would have come, he would have also found it slightly difficult.

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“Since I have played so many deliveries, I can afford to take that risk, because a lot of runs were needed. I think 10 or 12 deliveries, we needed some close to 40 runs or 36 runs or something like that, which meant a lot of boundaries were needed.

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“So yes, right now you can calculate, two runs over there, one run over there, and we are through, because we lost by one run, but at the same time what you have to see is what if there were a few dot balls, whether we could have got those extra boundaries or not,” he added.

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