When Dhoni came up against Mumbai Indians and lost again

Mumbai Indians v Rising Pune Supergiant, IPL final, Hyderabad, 2017

Mumbai Indians won by one run

MS Dhoni has featured in 11 IPL finals and captained in ten of them. This was the other one, the one that didn't involve Chennai Super Kings.

In the lead-up to the 2017 IPL, Rising Pune Supergiants decided things needed to change if they had to bounce back from the second-from-bottom finish of 2016. So they rebranded as Rising Pune Supergiant, and replaced Dhoni as captain.

For all the seeming acrimony of that decision, Supergiant played a recognisably Dhoni brand of cricket all through the 2017 season. The final was no different, with their bowlers strangling Mumbai Indians on a slow, grippy Hyderabad surface that could well have come from Chepauk. They had an offspinner opening the bowling, Washington Sundar reprising R Ashwin's role from CSK's early years. In Jaydev Unadkat and Dan Christian, they had death bowlers who relied on changes of pace, a little like Dwayne Bravo. And in an eerie echo of the 2010 final between CSK and Mumbai, a dangerous-looking Kieron Pollard was caught by a fielder placed almost directly behind the bowler.

Supergiant went into this final with a 3-0 record against Mumbai over the season, and 4-0 beckoned as they began their chase of 130.

Mumbai hadn't yet turned into the powerhouse they became in 2019 and 2020, but they had two areas of great strength: the power and all-round utility of Pollard and the Pandya brothers - Krunal's 47 off 38 balls ensured they had something to bowl at - and the death-bowling nous of Jasprit Bumrah and Lasith Malinga. And as Supergiant took things deep, in true Dhoni style, with Ajinkya Rahane and Steven Smith putting on 54 at less than a run a ball, the final turned into a death-overs shootout: 24 balls, 33 required, eight wickets in hand.

Mumbai Indians celebrate their third IPL title © BCCI

Bumrah removed Dhoni in the 17th over, but Supergiant's actual captain was beginning to embody their spiritual captain. Having hit only two boundaries in his first 43 balls, Smith now manufactured them on demand: a shuffle across his stumps to whip a Malinga near-yorker for four, a step deep in his crease to launch a Bumrah near-yorker for six.

Still, only 22 came from overs 17 to 19, and when Smith took strike for the first time in the final over, Supergiant needed seven off four balls. It was here that this contest of slow-burning intensity found its defining moment.

Mitchell Johnson steamed in from left-arm around, with only two fielders back on the off side. With a stump-to-stump line indicated, Smith stepped leg side to create room, and produced a flat, inside-out loft of glorious timing; it just so happened that he picked out the man at sweeper cover.

Smith c Rayudu b Johnson 51 (50). A well-paced half-century that took Supergiant to the cusp of victory, or an ill-advisedly sedate innings that turned a small chase into a final-over thriller? Three balls remained to decide which of those Smith's innings would be, and as it turned out, Johnson's yorkers were all there or thereabouts. With four to win off the last ball, Christian could only manage a whip along the ground towards the well-protected leg-side boundary. A fumble from substitute J Suchith at deep square leg testified to the tension of the situation, but Supergiant's attempt at a third run that would tie the scores was doomed to fail - so long as the throw from the deep didn't go horribly wrong. Suchith threw straight to wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel, and Mumbai, miraculously, had won their third IPL title.

Dhoni, meanwhile, had lost the third of four IPL finals against Mumbai. Two years later, back as captain, and back in yellow, he would lose once more to the same team, at the same ground, and by the same margin.

Karthik Krishnaswamy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo

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