One day after celebrating his 37th birthday, MS Dhoni was in the thick of things once again during the third and final T20 between England and India at Bristol.
England openers Jason Roy and Jos Buttler gave their side a roaring start as they put on 94 runs inside eight overs after being put into bat first by India.
India’s bowlers, especially Hardik Pandya, fought back in the second half of England’s innings to restrict the hosts to 198-9.
Among the nine wickets to fall, Dhoni was involved in six. The Ranchi-born man claimed five catches and affected a run-out. In the process, he became the first wicketkeeper to claim 50 catches in T20I cricket as well as the first to claim five catches in a single innings.
Today MS Dhoni became
— Broken Cricket (@BrokenCricket) July 8, 2018
First keeper to take 50 T20I catches...
First keeper to take 150 T20 catches...
First keeper to take 5 Catches in T20I innings...
It has been a record-breaking T20 series as far as Dhoni is concerned. In the first match at Manchester, Dhoni went past Kamran Akmal’s tally (32) with his 33rd stumping, which is the most by a wicketkeeper in T20Is.
In the second game at Cardiff, the veteran made his 500th international appearance for India, making him only the third in the country’s history to do so after Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid.