MS Dhoni – The Captain Cool Of India

MS Dhoni

Dhoni is the best captain I have played under

Sachin Tendulkar.

These are the words of the “God Of Cricket” for the “Captain Cool” MS Dhoni. 

On an average almost 91 percent of people love to watch cricket in India. When it comes to cricket India is like a night sky with many stars in it. There are some stars which shine the brightest in that sky. MS Dhoni is one of those brightest stars of the cricket world. He is the former captain of India, whose captaincy led India to win its second ODI World Cup Trophy after 1983 in 2011. HE holds the record for the fastest stumping in the world.

Let’s take a journey of MS Dhoni’s life :-

MS Dhoni was born on 7 July 1981 in Ranchi, Jharkhand in a Hindu-Rajput family. His father’s name is Pan Singh and his mother’s name is Devaki Devi. His full name is Mahendra Singh Dhoni. 

He is the youngest in his family. His father used to work as a pump operator in a junior management position in the MECON Company.

Guys do you know that he was a goalkeeper of DAV Jawahar Vidya Mandir School football team? He initially wanted to play football but Coach Keshav Ranjan recognised his talent and encouraged Dhoni to play cricket. He might have seen great potential in a young player. 

His exceptional talent and his hard work confirmed his entry in the Vinod Mankad U-16 Championship in 1997-98.

Guys, Dhoni also worked as a Travelling Ticket Examiner (TTE) at Kharagpur Railway Station.

Let’s take a look at MS Dhoni’s initial career :-

He played for the Central CoalFields Limited (CCL) team. Until 12th grade he never played any professional cricket. Deval Sahay took a liking to Dhoni’s skills and pushed for Dhoni’s selection in the Bihar Team. 

Dhoni moved to Ranchi’s team, The junior Bihar Team and eventually joined the senior Bihar Ranji Team in just 1 year.

MS Dhoni in the Bihar Cricket Team :-

He made his Ranji Trophy debut in the 1999-2000 season, when he was 18 years old. Dhoni shined with a half century in his debut match where he scored 68 not out against the Assam Cricket Team.

His first professional century was scored against the Bengal team for the Bihar team in the 2000-2001 season. 

He was selected in the India A team for his efforts in the 2003-04 season, especially in the One-Day format. When he was picked for a tour of Zimbabwe and Kenya, he represented his great wicket keeping skills by & catches and 4 stumpings in the matches. 

He scored back-to-back centuries against the Pakistan A team. He scored a half century in a match against Pakistan A while chasing 223 runs.   

Dhoni’s efforts and performance received attention from Sourav Ganguly– Indian Team Captain at that time along with Ravi Shastri and others.

After that, he was selected in the India’s International Team and his journey to fame and greatness began. 

International Career :

ODI Career

Dhoni didn’t get a good start in his first ODI match. He got a run-out for a duck on debut. Despite his average performance in the tour against Bangladesh he got another chance. He was picked for the Pakistan ODI series. 

In his career 5th ODI match against Pakistan, Dhoni scored 148 runs in just 123 deliveries in Visakhapatnam. He broke the record of the highest score by the Indian Wicket Keeper in this match. 

In the Srilankan bilateral ODI series, Dhoni got few opportunities in the first two matches but in the third game, India was chasing 299 runs and Sachin Tendulkar got out early. Then, Dhoni got promoted to play at No. 3 to accelerate the scoreboard. He scored an Unbeaten 183 runs in 145 balls, winning the game for India.

This inning set various records including the highest individual score in ODI cricket in the second Innings. He was awarded the Man Of the Series award for his performance throughout the series.

After that, Dhoni played many matches and scored many runs. During the series between India and Australia in 2009, he scored 124 runs in 107 balls in the second innings and scored 71 runs in 95 balls in the third ODI. 

Dhoni had an excellent year in the ODI’s in 2009, he scored 1198 runs in 24 innings. For his performance in 2009, he was named as captain and wicket keeper of the World ODI XI by the ICC (International Cricket Council). 

T20 Career

Dhoni scored unbeaten 44 runs to win the first match over Australia in Adelaide. In the last over he hit a large sixes, one of the six travelled 112 metres. 

He was named as the captain and wicket keeper of the “Team of Tournament for the 2014 T20 World Cup by the ICC.” 

MS Dhoni was chosen to lead Team India in the first ever World T-20 in 2007. His captaincy debut was against Scotland but the match was washed away.

After that, he led India towards the path of victory of the ICC World Twenty 20 Trophy in South Africa. It was an intensely fought final on 24 September 2007 against Pakistan. After that, he became the second Indian Captain to have won a World Cup in any form of cricket after Kapil Dev. 

Test Career

Dhoni replaced Dinesh Karthik in December 2005 as Indian Team’s Test wicket keeper. He scored 30 runs in his debut match. He scored 30 runs in his debut match, which was later interrupted by rain.

After that, Dhoni came to bat when the team was at 109/5. He played an aggressive inning and was the last man dismissed.

In the second test, Dhoni made his maiden half century with a quick score of 50 runs off 51 balls. Dhoni helped India to set a target of 436, whereas Srilankans were bowled out for 247. 

In the India tour of Pakistan in 2006, where Dhoni scored his first maiden century in the second test. Dhoni partnered with Irfan Pathan and tried to recover India which was in a bad situation at that time. He played his naturally aggressive style as he brought up his maiden Test century in just 93 balls. 

In 2003, SriLanka toured India, in a series of three matches in which he led them to a victory of 2-0. India went to the number one position in Test Cricket for the first time in history. India scored 726-9 in the third match series, which was the highest total then.

Dhoni played his last test series in 2014-15 swanson in the India tour of Australia. 

After losing the second and drawing the third, trailing the series 2-0 before the Sydney test. 

Following the third match in Melbourne, Dhoni announced his retirement from the test format.

He went past Kumar Sangakkara in the records of stumping 134 in all the formats and also set the record for the most dismissals in a match by an Indian wicket keeper.

He finished his last innings with unbeaten 24 runs.

Indian Premier League (IPL) Career

Dhoni engaged with Chennai Super Kings (CSK) for 9.5 crore rupees which made him the most expensive player in the IPL inaugural season. Under his captaincy, CSK won 2010, 2011, 2018 and the 2021 IPL title. CSK is the team which has played the most finals in the IPL and the second most successful team after Mumbai Indians (MI). Dhoni became the first player to play 200 T20 matches for CSK. 

In 2015, CSK got banned for 2 years due to illegal betting of one of their officials, Gurunath Meiyappan

In the 2018 season, CSK returned to IPL and he was again the captain of the franchise. Dhoni scored 455 runs in the season and led CSK to their third IPL title.  

He led CSK to the 4th title in 2021 and he was retained for 12 crore rupees by CSK.

 Dhoni never had a good debut but his talent and hardwork made him the “Captain Cool”. A genuine and humble person is respected by all. He proved that failure is a challenge not an end.

“Face the failure until failure fails to face you

MS Dhoni