India vs New Zealand ODI series: 5 biggest plays of the series

#5 MS Dhoni’s street start brilliance behind the stumps

MS Dhoni reminded us again why we should eternally be in love with him

MS Dhoni has the fastest hands in the East, a term that has been commonly used by Ravi Shastri in the recent past. In the series against New Zealand, the fans would have witnessed at least three instances of his street smart cricketing sense and how fast his hands work behind the stumps.

In the third ODI at Mohali, MS Dhoni was brilliant behind the stumps. First, it was Ross Taylor, who was deceived by the flight of Amit Mishra’s delivery and came forward to hit the ball for runs but was thoroughly beaten before Dhoni whipped off the bails in a flash.

Few balls later, Luke Ronchi was done in by Dhoni’s fast hands as he was lured into a drive by Mishra and in his haste, he dragged his right foot out of the crease before he the ball went past the outside edge of his bat into the hands of Dhoni. Ronchi did very well to drag his foot inside the crease but was not fast enough as Dhoni disturbed the bails of the stumps in the blink of an eye.

If these two instances were not sufficient, there was one more act of Dhoni’s brilliance when he ran Ross Taylor out even without looking at the stumps. In the fourth ODI at Ranchi, Ross Taylor flicked a Umesh Yadav delivery towards the fine leg boundary where Dhawal Kulkarni collected the ball and threw to his captain at the striker’s end.

Dhoni, who was way away in front of the stumps, received the ball and flicked it onto the stumps with his back turned to the stumps, with only a sense of where the stumps could have been. If it was a conventional keeper, he would have been waiting behind the stumps to collect the ball and that would have allowed the batsman to make it to the crease as the throw from the deep was not accurate.