#msdhonirecords

Less than thirty years before that enchanting Saturday night when Ravi Shastri’s voice rang through television sets all over India when even the spunky and exuberant Indian youth showed m...

Career Information

Test debut vs Sri Lanka at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Dec 02, 2005 

Last Test vs Australia at Melbourne Cricket Ground, Dec 26, 2014 

ODI debut vs Bangladesh at MA Aziz Stadium, Dec 23, 2004

Last ODI vs New Zealand at Emirates Old Trafford, Jul 09, 2019

T20 debut vs South Africa at The Wanderers Stadium, Dec 01, 2006

Last T20 vs Australia at M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Feb 27, 2019

IPL debut vs Kings XI Punjab at Punjab Cricket Association IS Bindra Stadium, Apr 19, 2008

Last IPL vs Mumbai Indians at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, May 12, 2019

Profile

Less than thirty years before that enchanting Saturday night when Ravi Shastri’s voice rang through television sets all over India, when even the spunky and exuberant Indian youth showed more interest in an old-school CRT television at a local

chai ki dukaan

than the dance-floor at a pub, a pump-operator in Ranchi awaited the birth of his third child.

Any cricket fan worth his salt just read this in Ravi Shastri's most dramatic voice, as Mahendra Singh Dhoni enchanted the Wankhede on the night of 2nd April 2011.

The Foundations

Hailing from Jharkhand, Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s rise through the ranks into international cricket is a tale of rebellion, extraordinary merit, perseverance, and, most of all, belief. After being scouted on the whims of his school P.E. teacher as a wicketkeeper, Dhoni created whispers in the cricketing circles of Ranchi - a teenaged boy with no measurable upper-body strength clearing boundaries against some of the best fast bowlers of the district. However, the system failed him as he found it difficult to make the cut against candidates of the more affluent A-tier states. Consequently, in a desperate move, he joined the Railways Ranji team and started to work as a ticket collector at the Kharagpur railway station to make ends meet.

Nevertheless, in a few months, the stars started to align themselves for the precocious wunderkind from Ranchi. Inspired by the KSCA, the BCCI started a country-wide Training Research Development Wing to scout talent from the more financially backward states. Dhoni immediately caught the eyes of the scouts and was sent on an A tour to Kenya, where his talent burst forth for the world to see as he showcased his batting pyrotechnics against world-class bowlers in alien conditions. He immediately shot to national reckoning and was selected for the tour of Bangladesh in November 2004.

By then a broad 22-year-old with long locks, Dhoni’s India career got off to an inauspicious start, as he scored a duck in his first ODI and a string of low scores followed. However, the selectors and the then-captain Sourav Ganguly decided to persist with him and gave him an extended run. Dhoni repaid their faith with an exhibition of his charisma and audacious stroke-play in his fifth ODI against Pakistan, who certainly didn’t see the butchery coming, as he butchered his way to 148 at Vishakhapatnam. Later in 2005, he went one step further bludgeoning his way to a brutal 183* in Jaipur to make a mockery of a 300-run chase against a Sri Lankan attack that looked aghast at his bizarre-but-effective stroke-play and the unparalleled physical power that he imparted on the ball.

Technique

There have always been questions about Dhoni's technique, and how ugly it looks. And the assessment of Dhoni's technique points out one of the major follies in our game - the temptation to judge by aesthetics rather than functionality. Technique is a product of how you get something done and not a step by step physical procedure as to how to do it. The method to achieve the fundamental virtues of the game rely on your abilities and aptitude to execute them in a particular way. Dhoni looks unorthodox at the crease, but he gets back and across. Instead of punching with his fore-arms, he bludgeons it with his wrists, with a low back-lift, ensuring that he plays it late. Most importantly, he has a still head while perceiving the line of the ball and at the point of contact. He also has an open stance allowing him to pull easily by getting to the back-foot early.

And just like that, all the virtues of batting are achieved by him, albeit with a slightly out-of-the-box method.

As teams all over the world tried to work a way around his fireworks, Dhoni established himself as a reliable batsman in Tests too, with a technique that worked against pace, seam, swing and spin. In his 5th Test, he coincidentally scored another 148 against Pakistan in an uncharacteristically stoic effort to save the match, thereby portraying his versatility as a batsman. After a string of wicketkeeper-batsman being tried in the side, Dhoni had finally become a mainstay in the side - a powerful pinch-hitter towards the end of the innings capable of more than just cameos, and a more-than-reliable wicketkeeper in the side.

In a state where leather ball cricket was a luxury, Dhoni grew up playing tennis ball cricket tournaments. With heavy Kashmir willow bats, light and hollow tennis balls, and long boundaries, he developed a bottomhand-dominated technique to impart maximum power on the light tennis ball which undergoes energy-damping upon impact. However, Dhoni stood out when he, along with a friend, developed an elevated body-weight shot with an exaggerated follow-through that cleared boundaries with ease. On that count, cricketing folklore will remember MS Dhoni as the man who had the audacity to play the 'helicopter shot' against the leather ball.

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FULL NAME                   Mahendra Singh Dhoni

BORN                            July 7, 1981 Ranchi, Bihar (now Jharkhand)

AGE                               39 Years, 1 Month, 13 Days

NATIONAL SIDE             India

BATTING STYLE          Right Handed

BOWLING                    Right-arm medium

BATTING RANK Test - NA, ODI - 26, World Cup - 26, T20I - NA, IPL - NA, CL - NA

BOWLING RANK Test - NA, ODI - NA, World Cup - NA, T20I - NA, IPL - NA, CL - NA

TEAMS PLAYED India, Asia XI, East Zone, India A, India Blue, Indian Board Presidents XI, India Seniors, Rest of India, Chennai Super Kings, Jharkhand, Rising Pune Supergiant

MAN OF THE MATCH Test - 2, ODI - 21, World Cup - 1, T20I - 0, IPL - 17, CL - 0,

CAREER SPAN[Test, 2005 - 2014], [ODI, 2004 - 2019], [World Cup, 2007 - 2019], [T20I, 2006 - 2019], [IPL, 2008 - 2019], [CL, 2010 - 2014],

MS DHONI PROFILE

In the late 90s and during Greg Chappell's coaching era, when heads were tumbling through the Indian team's turmoil, it seems all that Mahendra Singh Dhoni did was chalk out a plan on how things would change for the better. When granted the opportunity to lead, he showed himself ready and emerged as the solution to most of India's problems, enough to finally fulfill expectations of a long-suffering crowd of supporters.

An Adam Gilchrist-inspired Dhoni was drafted in 2004 to solve India's wicketkeeper-batsman crisis after the failure of the Rahul Dravid experiment. His start was anything but legendary - getting out for a duck. It was his fifth outing at home against Pakistan in 2005, where he stroked a blistering 148, making everyone sit up and take notice. A mammoth 183 to chase a high Sri Lankan total later in the year reiterated his value. By the end of 2005, Dhoni donned the all-whites to earn a Test cap against Sri Lanka. In the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 that followed, Dhoni was chosen to lead a young Indian side. Under his guidance, the team quickly turned disappointment to joy by lifting the coveted trophy, to the surprise of both fans and detractors. His ability to excel in leadership was quickly recognized and within a year, he was appointed as the Indian skipper in all forms of the game.

Under Dhoni's captaincy, India posted successful Test series victories home (England 2008) and away against New Zealand (2009) and Sri Lanka (2009). Throughout his first five years as a Test player, India had lost only two away series, a record which helped them top the Test rankings. The biggest accomplishment of his career came in 2011 when he powered Team India to a remarkable World Cup victory with his extraordinary leadership skills. It was after 28 long years that India won the Cup, thanks to a bunch of hardworking and enthusiastic cricketers led by a young and exceptionally astute skipper. He played a captain's innings in the final against Sri Lanka, where his brilliant unbeaten knock sealed the most memorable victory for his team and country.

Dhoni’s next adventures were probably his toughest as a skipper. Consecutive tours to England and Australia in 2011/12 were complete disasters as the team was whitewashed both times. Success in Tests continued to evade Dhoni even as he relished the shorter formats. A home series loss to England the following year put question marks on Dhoni’s leadership in the longest format of the game but he did have his way in 2013 when he inflicted on a touring Australian team, a 4-0 whitewash, making him the first captain in a long time to do so. That was followed by winning the ICC Champions Trophy in 2013 making him the only skipper to hold all the major ICC trophies - the T20 WC, the 50-over WC and the Champions Trophy.

The ghosts of 2011 returned to haunt him in 2014 on India’s tour to England and despite a historic win at Lord’s, India went on to lose 1-3, further denting his overseas Test record. On 30th December 2014, having saved the third Test for India against Australia at the MCG, Dhoni announced his retirement from Tests with immediate effect citing too much strain as a captain as the reason, handing over the mantle to Virat Kohli. The 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup proved why he was such a tremendous captain in ODIs. Having failed to win a single game in the Tests in Australia and even the tri-series, the Indian team had a magnificent run in the mega event, winning all their league games and even the quarters, only to fall short against a champion Aussie side in the semis. They were on an 11-match winning streak in World Cups, broken only by that magnificent Clarke-led team.

Dhoni gave up the captaincy of limited-overs teams in early 2017. In the twilight of Ms Dhoni career, he still is a key figure in the Indian setup, often being the man that the current captain Virat Kohli looks up to in times of crisis. Apart from being an extremely inspiring leader for India, Dhoni also proved his mettle in franchise cricket by leading Chennai to multiple Indian T20 League titles, the last one being in 2018 and two Champions League T20 silverware (2010,2014). Chennai became the first side in the Indian T20 League to successfully defend their title. His team has been arguably the most consistent side in franchise T20 cricket across the globe. Though he may be aging, he is aging like fine wine and just getting better. When he decides to hang up his gloves, it will be the end of an era, one of the Golden eras that Indian cricket had seen under this legend from Ranchi.