2- Promoting Rohit Sharma up the order
Rohit Sharma didn’t do justice to his talent before 2013 Champions trophy but has not looked back since then. India was in a dire need of Shikhar Dhawan’s opening partner at the time of Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag’s decline in form. Murali Vijay was expected to open the innings alongside Shikhar Dhawan but Dhoni surprised one and all by promoting Rohit Sharma to the top order from a middle order batsman in the opening game against South Africa.
Both the openers started cautiously and added 127 runs for the first wicket to take India to a dominant position. India went onto win the game by 26 runs and later lifted the trophy after pipping hosts- England. The Delhi-Mumbai combination is now fourth in the list of most successful opening partners in ODI cricket with 4681 runs in 103 innings.
1- Promoting himself up the order in 2011 world cup final
India had an average start to their innings, chasing a total of 275 runs against a strong Sri Lankan bowling line-up comprising Lasith Malinga, Muttiah Muralitharan and others. The men in blue were 114 for three at one stage and cricket pundits and fans were expecting the man in form- Yuvraj Singh to step up at the number five position for India.
An out of form Dhoni surprised everyone by promoting himself up the order over Yuvraj Singh and rest is history. India won the world cup by 6 wickets and Dhoni was adjudged the man of the match for his complexion changing innings of 91 from 79 balls.
Conclusion
Dhoni has a habit of surprising his fans and make some decisions when nobody expects him to do so. Everyone is speculating that the veteran of 350 ODIs will hang up his boots in the coming days but going by this trend, he will surely make an exit at the time when the fans least expect him to do so. We won’t be surprised if he appears for the national team in next year’s World T20 in Australia.
