M.S. Dhoni – The People’s Favorite

When we talk about cricket, a very important name that comes to our mind is that of Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Dhoni is an Indian cricketer who led Indian Cricket team from 2007 to 2017. He played as a batsman and a wicketkeeper. India got through three trophies of ICC under his leadership. These include ICC World Twenty 20, ICC cricket world cup 2011 and champions trophy 2013. India also won Asia Cup two times in the year 2010 and 2016 when he was a captain. A few more to be mentioned are the ICC test championships of 2010 and 2011 which India won under him. Dhoni due to his performance has always been in the headline of Cricket Samachar.

MS Dhoni considers great batsman Sachin Tendulkar, Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan and legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar as his idols since childhood. Even today, whenever Dhoni gets time, he goes around Ranchi on his favorite bike. He comes from a Hindu Rajput family. Amongst three siblings, he was the youngest of all. His parent’s name is Pan Singh and Denali Devi. Dhoni was previously a goalkeeper for his school’s football team. Gradually his goalkeeping skills developed, and coach Keshav Ranjan Banerjee saw him and inspired him to be a cricketer. He picked him to play cricket for his school. From there, his journey started as a regular wicketkeeper at the Commando cricket club in 1995.

For the period 2001 to 2003, Dhoni worked as a Travelling Ticket Examiner also. He is popularly known as Mahi. He is married to Sakshi Dhoni. MS Dhoni is a Right-handed batsman. He played for India between 2004 and 2019.

Dhoni began playing cricket professionally in 1998 with the Bihar Under-19 team. Dhoni made his playing debut for the Bihar Ranji squad in the years 1999–2000. He hit a half-century of 68 runs in the second innings in his first game against the Assam cricket team. He began playing Ranji for Jharkhand in 2000, following Jharkhand’s separation from Bihar. The National Team Selection Committee took note of him because of his contributions to the Deodhar Trophy, Duleep Trophy, and India “A” tour to Kenya.

In 2004, Sourav Ganguly was asked who would make a wicket-keeper in the team during a meeting of the team selection committee. In 2004, Dhoni made his international debut against Bangladesh in Chittagong, since then Mahendra Singh Dhoni has come a long way in cricket. He played against Sri Lanka in his first test match. Mahendra Singh Dhoni played T20 for the first time against South Africa.

When we talk about the career statistics of Mahendra Singh Dhoni he played 90 test matches in which overall runs he scored were, 4876 with a batting average of 38.10. Taking deep insight he scored 6 centuries while 33 half centuries. The top score he scored was 224. The total balls bowled in these test matches was 96. Mahendra Singh Dhoni had a total of 256 catches and 38 stumpings in his test series.

Now, when looking towards the One-day International (ODI) of Mahindra Singh Dhoni, his statistics are comprised of 350 matches. He scored a total of 10773 runs in one day of cricket. In one-day cricket matches, he bats at a 50.53 average. Mahendra Singh Dhoni amassed 73 half centuries in addition to 10 centuries. His highest ODI score came against Sri Lanka, at 183. In his ODI games, he bowled 36 balls altogether. His bowling average is 31. The total catches he took in day international matches is 321 whereas 123 stampings he took.

Now if we see his T20I scorecard we can see a total of 98 matches in which he scored 1617 runs in all. Mahendra Singh Dhoni had a batting average of 37.60 in his T20 international matches. He scored two half-centuries in these. His top score in the T20 Matches is 56. He bagged 57 catches and 34 stampings in his T20I matches. Having dismissed Mitchell Marsh in 0.76 seconds, Dhoni also owns the record for the quickest stumping in international cricket. Dhoni is renowned across the world for his batting, keeping, and finishing.

Coming over to T20 matches, Mahendra Singh Dhoni had played 358 matches in which he scored a total of 7098 runs. In his T20 games, he bats with a 38.16 batting average. In these games, Mahendra Singh Dhoni scored a total of 28 half-centuries. In the T20 games he has played, he has the highest score of 84.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni also played Domestic cricket. He played for Bihar and Jharkhand teams. He is also the captain of Chennai Super Kings in IPL (Indian Premier League).he was the captain in the championships in the year 2010,2011,2018 and 2021 matches of IPL leagues. Chennai Super kings won the Champions League T20 two times in 2010 and 2014 when he was the captain.

Throughout their career, Mahi had received several prestigious awards. In 2007 he was awarded Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award. He is the first player who won ICC ODI Player of the Year in 2008 and 2009. In 2011, a Doctorate was awarded by Monfort University. In the same year, he was also included in the 100 most influential people in the world.

Dhoni married Sakshi Singh Rawat on 4 July 2010 at a farmhouse in Dehradun, who was a friend of his since school. At the time of marriage, Sakshi was studying hotel management and Taj Bengal was working as a trainer in Kolkata

Mahendra Singh Dhoni surprised the people on the day he announced his retirement from his international cricketing career. That was the day of 15 August 2020, on this day Mahendra Singh Dhoni took his retirement forever from his 16-year-long cricketing career. With this announcement, crores of his fans on social media also expressed their grief and many big people also wished him good luck for the time to come.