Guwahati: The Indian Premier League started off with a bang on Saturday, as two heavyweights of the tournament, Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings, battled it out in the season-opener. Eventually, Chennai Super Kings won the contest by five wickets, as they successfully chased the target of 162, courtesy a brilliant 115-run partnership for the third wicket between Ambati Rayudu (71 of 48) and Faf du Plessis (58* of 44).
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The IPL, starting after a lot of confusions and postponements, was in itself a big relief and matter of excitement for cricket fans around the world, but there was something else that cricket fans around the world were equally excited about. It was about the CSK skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who was returning to competitive cricket after 437 days.
Dhoni, who announced his retirement from international cricket on August 15, 2020, made his last appearance in competitive cricket in the semi-final of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019, which India lost to New Zealand in July 2019, which was more than a year ago. The IPL season-opener was also Dhoni’s first public appearance since he announced his retirement last month.
Also Read: End of an era: MS Dhoni says goodbye to international cricket
Longest IPL captain
As Dhoni walked out to play the first game of the IPL 2020 as the skipper of the Chennai Super Kings, he became the only player to play the 2020 edition of the IPL as a player as well as a captain, who had captained a side in the inaugural season of the IPL in 2008, and remain a captain in every subsequent season.
100 IPL catches
Prior to Saturday’s match between CSK and Mumbai Indians, MS Dhoni had 98 catches in the IPL, and as Dhoni took the catches of Krunal Pandya and Kieron Pollard behind the stumps, he became the third player in the history of IPL to have claimed 100 catches(96 as wicketkeeper and 4 as a fielder). He is behind his fellow team-mate Suresh Raina, who has 102 catches to his name in the tournament, and India team-mate Dinesh Karthik with 101 catches(highest by a wicketkeeper).
250 Dismissals
MS Dhoni, on Saturday, became the first wicketkeeper in the world to reach 250 dismissals in T20 cricket with 167 catches and 83 stumpings. The former India skipper is followed by Kamran Akmal from Pakistan with 238 dismissals and Dinesh Kartik with 214 dismissals. Dhoni also has the highest number of dismissals as wicketkeeper in the IPL with 134 dismissals(96 catches and 34 stumpings), closely followed by Kolkata Knight Riders skipper-cum-wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik with 131 dismissals to his name.
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100th win as CSK Captain
MS Dhoni clinched his 100th victory as the captain of CSK on Saturday, thus becoming the only captain in the history of IPL with 100 wins for a particular team.
