VIDEO | MS Dhoni innovates new shot to save himself from simple stumping

There is a thing about MS Dhoni that he doesn’t let anyone win a battle against him. He lives in his zone and tethering across it to understand his thinking process is never easy - be it when he keeps or bats. It is that being “in the zone” which has given him so much success at the international level and New Zealand had a first-hand experience of that when Dhoni showed immaculate game awareness.

In the 16th over, Sodhi fired in flat and wide outside off delivery and Dhoni, by nature, had extended his body to guide it back to the bowler. However, his body was not in the right position to play that shot and he had extended himself so much that leave would have resulted in stumping as well. New Zealand wicket-keeper Tim Seifert saw a chance, but Dhoni is too street-smart to be bogged down by that.

What he did then can act as the perfect tutorial for the batsmen to play against the spinners. He let his bottom-hand go, only used the top hand to extend his bat to reach the ball, before taking a single. That negated the chance of Seifert collecting the ball to effect the stumping as well.