I purposely bowled a beamer to MS Dhoni: Shoaib Akhtar

Back in 2006, MS Dhoni was still pretty new to international cricket. The Jharkhand-born swashbuckling batsman got the chance of facing the venomous Shoaib Akhtar in the three-match Test series in Pakistan. But despite having some of the best bowlers in the business, the now 39-year-old churned out 148 runs off 153 balls in Faisalabad with the help of 19 fours and four sixes.

It was also his maiden Test ton, and though the game was drawn and RP Singh got the Player of the Match award, Dhoni got a lot of accolades from the cricket fraternity. However, during the knock, he had to face a beamer from Akhtar. It was revealed by Shoaib himself and he also admitted to have done it on purpose, though he had apologised to the then youngster.

I apologised to MS Dhoni, says Akhtar

“I remember when India had come to Pakistan, my left fibula was broken, my landing leg. MS Dhoni had scored a century at Faisalabad. What sort of wickets they had prepared, you know,” Akhtar was quoted as saying on Aakash Chopra’s YouTube channel.

“Every day they used to put big injections on my leg to make it numb and I kept on bowling. They asked me to play that last Test match as after that my leg would not support me. My fibula was almost hanging,” Akhtar stated.

“I think I had bowled an 8-9 over spell in Faisalabad. It was a quick spell and Dhoni scored a hundred. I purposely bowled a beamer to Dhoni and then apologised to him,” he added.

As far as Akhtar was concerned, he had a tough outing at the Iqbal Stadium. Albeit he got the wicket of Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar, he ended up conceding 100 runs in his 25 overs at an economy rate of four.

After the knock, Dhoni went on to have a reasonable Test career. In 90 Tests, he managed 4,876 runs at an average of 38.09 to go with six centuries and 33 half-centuries. He last played in the 2014-15 tour of Australia and his last game was the Melbourne Test after which Virat Kohli took over as the full-time Test captain.