Mighty Mahendra: MS Dhoni’s IPL performance in last two years

The return of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) to the Indian Premier League (IPL) in the 2018 season also saw MS Dhoni’s batting coming to its glory. Across the past two seasons, Dhoni’s batting has been the X-factor for the Super Kings and even can be said as their best batsman in that period. Since the start of 2018, Dhoni aggregated 871 runs from 27 innings with the help of six fifties including his highest IPL score of 84*.

MS Dhoni had a strike rate of 142.55 across those two seasons and his average of 79.18 is by far the most by any other player in this period. Opening batsmen David Warner (69.2) and KL Rahul (54.43) are the other players with 500+ runs at 50+ average since 2018. In the 2019 season, Dhoni scored 416 runs at an average of 83.2 and a strike rate of 134.62. His numbers were even more impressive in 2018 where he amassed 455 runs at 75.83 average which he scored at a strike rate of 150.66.

Game-changing knocks

Dhoni played quite a few match-turning knocks and helped the Chennai franchise pull off victories out of nowhere. In the 2018 edition, he smashed an unbeaten 70 from 34 balls to help CSK chase down 206 against the Royal Challengers Bangalore from 74/4 in nine overs. He nearly replicated his efforts in 2019 where he scored an unbeaten 84 from 48 balls coming in at 28/4 in six overs during the chase of 162 runs. Needing 26 runs from the last over bowled by Umesh Yadav, the keeper-batsman smashed 24 runs before missing out on the last delivery when two runs were required.

The six-hitting machine

In 27 innings across two years, MS Dhoni smashed as many as 53 sixes which is almost two maximums per innings. The CSK skipper has a BASRA (Batting average + strike rate) of 221.73 in the past two seasons which is by far the best for any Indian with 500+ runs. Among all players, only Andre Russell (237.97) has a better BASRA than that of Dhoni.

(Stats as on September 17, 2020)