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Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni won his first player of the match award in IPL since 2019.
MS Dhoni played a starring role in CSK’s impressive win. (Screengrab/JioHotstar)
Chennai Super Kings snapped their losing streak by beating Lucknow Super Giants in an IPL 2025 match held at the Ekana Cricket Stadium on Monday night. The MS Dhoni-led outfit produced a vastly improved show across departments for a confidence-boosting five-wicket win – their second in seven matches of the season so far.
Dhoni was one of the star performers for the visitors effecting three dismissals – catch, stumping and a run out – besides blasting an unbeaten 26 off 11 to help CSK chase down 168 in 19.3 overs.
And for his all-round show, Dhoni was picked player-of-the-match – an award he’s won for the first time since IPL 2019 and at 43 years of age is the oldest player to claim it.
However, the five-time IPL winning captain didn’t think he was worthy of the award and indicated it should have been CSK spinner Noor Ahmad instead.
“Even today I was like, ‘Why are they giving me the award?’ I feel Noor bowled really well. With the new ball and when Noor and Jaddu bowled four-five overs together – these were the two phases where we did really well,” Dhoni said.
When asked if he remembers the last time winning player of the match award in IPL, Dhoni replied in the negative and was pleasantly surprised when told it was 2019. “That’s long time back!” he said.
CSK were on a five-match losing streak after starting their IPL campaign with a win over Mumbai Indians. They still are languishing at the last spot in the standings, but Dhoni said the win will serve as a confidence-booster.
“It’s good to win a game. When you play a tournament like this, you want to win games. Unfortunately, the (earlier) matches didn’t go our way for whatever reasons. There can be lots of reasons. It’s good to have a win on our side. Gives confidence to the whole team and helps us improve in areas we want to improve,” he said.
