On this day in 2005, former Indian World Cup-winning skipper MS Dhoni smashed his first international century in the 2nd ODI match against Pakistan at Visakhapatnam. Dhoni’s 148 runs innings off 123 balls consisted of 15 fours and 6 four sixes.
In That match, Indian captain Sourav Ganguly chose to bat after winning the toss. India’s pride Sachin Tendulkar got run out in the beginning by Yousuf Youhana. For the first time after the failure in the initial few matches, Dhoni was promoted at no 3 from the lower order. And certainly, MSD didn’t disappoint the management. He made the first partnership of 96 runs for the 3rd wicket with Virender Sehwag, who also made 74 in that match. The 2nd partnership was with Rahul Dravid of 149 runs for the fifth wicket. Dhoni made the Pakistani bowlers look poor by smashing them all around the park. That day India got a permanent wicket-keeper batsman for the next 15 years to represent them in international cricket. Dhoni showed the World that he had come there to dominate at the highest level. India posted an unchaseable score of 356 in 50 overs with the assistance of Dhoni’s fierce knock.
“MS Dhoni Smashed His First International Century”- Celebration On Twitter
India bowled them out for 298 runs in 44.1 overs. Left-arm seamer Ashish Nehra returned with the best figure in the match 4/72 in 10 overs. Yuvraj Singh bagged 3 wickets to win the match for India. For Pakistan, Abdul Razzaq added 88 runs, and Yousuf Yohana made 71 off 56 balls.
MS Dhoni got the Man of the Match award for his exceptional century (148), it was also Dhoni’s first Man of the Match of his international career.
After this match, Dhoni’s cricketing career took off and he ended up playing 350 ODIs and scored 10773 runs with an average of 50.57 runs. Dhoni also led India to win ICC T20 World Cup 2007, ICC Cricket World Cup, and ICC Champions Trophy.
Senior Cricket Content Editor at Skyblogs Cricket.
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