In Monday's Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 encounter between the Chennai Super Kings and the Lucknow Super Giants, the 43-year-old MS Dhoni's game-winning finish caused a great deal of nostalgia. Following what appeared to be another batting unit collapse, Dhoni's 11-ball 26 swung the tide in CSK's favor. It was up to Dhoni and Shivam Dube to lead Chennai home, as they needed to win by 44 runs in the last 4 overs.
Rishabh Pant, the captain of LSG, was under pressure to make snap decisions about his bowling selections. Pant, a novice skipper, made a mistake at this point.
Even though leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi had been the team's best bowler during the match, Pant chose to choose the pace-bowling combination of Avesh Khan and Shardul Thakur in the last four overs. Bishnoi had taken two wickets and conceded just 18 runs in his three overs. He was unable to finish his allotted four overs, though.
During the post-match press conference, Bishnoi stated that he went to the middle of the pitch in the hopes that the LSG captain would see him and give him the ball, even though he didn't talk to Pant about giving him a chance to bowl at the end. However, that did not occur.
"I didn't really talk [to Pant] about it, but I went to the wicket a couple of times and I think he had plans in place he wanted to execute," Bishnoi told media after the game. "In such situations the captain is better placed and he keeps wicket too, so he understands things better. According to me, he took the decision he thought was better," he added.
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Bishnoi even pointed out that after the trio of Bishnoi, Digvesh Rathi, and Aiden Markram had figures of 11-0-66-4, Lucknow needed to put a fourth spinner on the track. Medium pacer Shardul Thakur was LSG's biggest letdown, giving up 56 runs.
"It was quite a close game anyway and all our bowlers bowled well. So in my opinion, it didn't really matter that much whether there could have been an extra spinner. In a way, we already had three spinners - Markram bowled his full quota of four overs, Rathi bowled, I bowled - so after having three spinners, a fourth spinner, I don't think you could have played one more on that pitch.
"And as far as Mahi bhai (MS Dhoni) is concerned, as everybody knows - when the ball is in his radar and it's his day, that's it," Bishnoi added.
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