MS Dhoni has created history on Friday (2nd October) evening as he becomes the most-capped player in the Indian Premier League (IPL) history after making his 194th IPL appearances.
In the 14th match of the IPL 2020, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) are playing against SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) at Dubai International Cricket Stadium (Dubai). It is 194th IPL match for the 39-year-old MS Dhoni. Surpassing Suresh Raina‘s record of 193 IPL matches, Dhoni has now become the most-capped player in IPL history.
Though the CSK star Suresh Raina travelled in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with the team, he later withdrew his name from the entire IPL 2020 citing his personal issues.
Through his official social media accounts, Raina also congratulated Dhoni for this achievement.
Congratulations Mahi bhai (@msdhoni) at becoming the most capped IPL player. Happiest that my record is being broken by you. All the best for the game today and am sure @ChennaiIPL will win this season’s @IPL. pic.twitter.com/f5BRQTJ0aF
— Suresh Raina?? (@ImRaina) October 2, 2020
MS Dhoni also becomes the joint most-capped player for CSK in both IPL and T20 history
Apart from the record of most matches in IPL history, this match is also significant for MS Dhoni for two more appearances records in Chennai Super Kings history. These stats are:
- It is Dhoni’s 164th IPL appearance for CSK. Equalling the record of Suresh Raina’s 164 IPL matches for CSK, Dhoni becomes the joint most-capped player for CSK in IPL history.
- It is also Dhoni’s 188th T20 appearance for CSK. Equalling the record of Suresh Raina’s 188 T20 matches for CSK, Dhoni becomes the joint most-capped player for CSK in T20 cricket.
MS Dhoni is already holding the record of most matches as captain in IPL history while it is his 178th IPL match as a captain. He is the only captain in IPL history to appear as captain in 150+ matches. While he has led the CSK team in all his 164 IPL matches, he also led now-defunct Rising Pune Supergiants (RPS) in 14 IPL matches during IPL 2016.
Also, Dhoni is holding the record of most matches as captain in T20 cricket history. As a T20 captain, Dhoni is currently playing his 274th match, while there is no other T20 captain to appear in at least 250 matches. Caribbean cricketer Daren Sammy is currently in the second position in this list as he has appeared in 208 T20 matches as a captain.
In his previous match, when CSK faced Delhi Capitals (DC) at Dubai (25th September 2020), where DC won by 44 runs, MS Dhoni became the second most-capped T20 player among the Indians by surpassing Suresh Raina’s 319 T20 matches record. At present, Dhoni is playing his 321st T20 match. Only Rohit Sharma is ahead of him in this list as the Indian cricketer has played 332 T20 matches.