5 instances when MS Dhoni single-handedly carried the Indian batting

#4. 113* vs Pakistan at Visakhapatnam in 2005

MS Dhoni playing a shot against Pakistan

The 2nd match of the 2005 Pakistan-India ODI series was played at Visakhapatnam on 5 April. Indian captain Sourav Ganguly won the toss and elected to bat first against arch-rivals Pakistan. The match went down in the history books as the launching platform of a global icon named MS Dhoni.

Indian suffered a blow in the third over of the innings as Sachin Tendulkar got out cheaply. As the nation’s pride was taking his long walk back towards the dressing room, a young Jharkhand lad walked into the field with a bat. The right-handed batsman straight away started counter-attacking the Pakistani pace attack and took good care of their spinners.

Dhoni remained unbeaten at the end of their scheduled 50 overs as India posted a huge total of 356 on the scoreboard. His innings of 148 off just 123 came at a strike-rate of 120.32 along with 15 fours and four mammoth sixes. In the end, India won the match by 58 runs and the wicketkeeper-batsman was awarded the player of the match trophy.