5 Dhoni moments from the India-New Zealand ODI series

Dhoni had a mixed series

Ever since he retired from the Test format, it has never been easy for Dhoni to come into the team and find his touch straightaway. But to his credit, he has always worked hard on his fitness in the off-season and kept himself fit, ready and raring to go. Overall, Dhoni’s performance in this series can be classified as a ‘mixed bag.’

He finished behind Kohli as India’s second highest run-getter in the series but was far from convincing in most of his stays at the crease. However, he was as agile and brilliant behind the stumps as he ever was - producing several match-turning moments during the course of the series.

We take a look at five such moments or phases in the series, in which Dhoni had a positive or negative influence on the game.

#1 Dhoni’s moment of brilliance – The ‘blind’ runout

Dhoni’s blind run out of Ross Taylor

As a batsman and as a wicketkeeper, Dhoni has always been one who has thrown tradition and convention to the wind while patenting a street-smart method of his own that has achieved unprecedented success in creating dismissals from seemingly non-existent opportunities. 

We saw another sample of his brilliance during the 4^th ODI at his home ground, Ranchi. In the 46^th over of the New Zealand innings, Ross Taylor heaved a delivery down the leg side from Umesh Yadav towards Dhawal Kulkarni at fine leg, hoping to run a quick two runs.

Kulkarni returned a weak throw from the deep and Taylor was well on his way to the crease when Dhoni literally pulled a rabbit out of his hat – positioning himself in front of the stumps, he collected the throw high on the bounce and deflected it back to the stumps in one quick motion without even bothering to look behind once – a combination of Dhoni’s brilliant awareness of the stumps and some luck, catching Taylor a few inches short of the crease.

Dhoni’s ‘blind’ run out became the trending talk of the day as its videos and trolls went viral all over social media.