Mahendra Singh Dhoni (born 7 July 1981), commonly known as M. S. Dhoni, is a cricket player and was the former captain of the Indian cricket team.[1] Dhoni is a right-handed batsman. He is known as the greatest captain of all time, having achieved more success than any other captain in the history of cricket.[2][3]
The Indian cricket team won the 2011 Cricket World Cup under his captainship. His Test cricket and One Day International records are the best among all Indian captains to date. He took over the ODI captaincy from Rahul Dravid in 2007 and led the team to its first ever inter-country ODI series wins in Sri Lanka and New Zealand. Dhoni also holds the post of Vice-President of India Cements Ltd. after resigning from Air India. India Cements is the owner of the Indian Premier Leagueteam Chennai Super Kings, and Dhoni has been its captain since the first edition of IPL.[4][5]
Dhoni has also been given many awards, such as the ICC ODI Player of the Year award in 2008 and 2009 (the first Indian player to achieve this), the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award in 2007 and the Padma Shri, India's fourth-highest civilian honour, in 2009.
First Century
In the year 2003, he managed to get his first century and was selected to India A team to play a tournament in Kenya against Pakistan. Without any doubt, he scored a good number of runs with an average of 72.40 and back to back centuries against Pakistan.
Selected in ODI Squad in 2004-05
After giving fabulous performances, he soon managed to get placed as a member of ODI squad for the season 2004 and 2005 to Bangladesh.
MS Dhoni: From a Railway servant to a cricketer
Playing in the domestic cricket builds a base for the long term but it didn’t ensure a wealthy life in those days. Hailing from a middle-class family, he had to look for additional ways to earn. Hence, he served as a Travelling Ticket Examiner (TTE) at Kharagpur railway station. A job that he secured with the sports quota.
From 2001 to 2003, he stayed with his job but was destined for something far bigger. Despite the family pressure to continue with the job, he kept putting the hard yards in on the cricket field. But the luck was not by his side as in spite of being picked in the Duleep Trophy squad for the East Zone, he couldn’t reach Agartala, the venue for the match, in time.
But it didn’t stop him. He kept going strong and forced the selectors to turn their attention towards him. Dhoni’s performances in the Ranji Trophy and the Deodhar Trophy didn’t go unnoticed and the 2003-04 season finally brought some good fortunes. He finished on the winning squad in the Deodhar Trophy and was picked for India A squad for the tour to Zimbabwe.
He was impressive in his stint with India A and the then captain of the national side, Sourav Ganguly saw something special in him. Eventually, MS Dhoni got he wanted all his life. In the year 2004-05, he was picked in the Indian squad for the Bangladesh tour. He did ODI debut against Bangladesh at MA Aziz Stadium, Dec 23, 2004.
MS Dhoni Awards and Achievements
Dhoni has been the recipient of many awards and various achievements. Some of them are
- In 2008 and 2009, MS Dhoni won the ICC ODI Player of the year.
- From 2008 to 2014, he was named in the ICC ODI XI (for 7 straight years). Also made it to the ICC Test XI in the years 2009, 2010 and 2013.
- He has won 20 Man of the Match awards and 6 Man of the Series awards in ODI cricket. Along with that, he won the Man of the Match twice in Test cricket.
- MS Dhoni received the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award in 2007.
- MS received the Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian honor in the year 2009.
- He received the Padma Bhushan, India’s third-highest civilian award in the year 2018.
