Mahendra Singh Dhoni

Mahendra Singh Dhoni is an Indian cricketer and the current captain of India in limited over formats. He is an attacking right handed middle over batsman and wicket keeper and he holds the record of most wins by an Indian captain in Tests as well as one day internationals (ODI) and most back to back wins by an Indian captain in ODIs. He is the first captain in the world to win all three International Cricket Council (ICC) limited overs trophies (World cup, Champions Trophy and T20 World cup). He announced his retirement from the test on 30th December 2014. Under his captaincy, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) has won the Indian Premiere League (IPL) twice. Apart from cricket, Dhoni also holds the post of Vice-President of India Cements Ltd., the company is the owner of IPL team CSK. Dhoni is also the co-owner of Indian Super League (ISL) team Chennaiyin FC. Born on 7th July 1981 in Ranchi, Bihar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni belongs to a Rajput family. He has a sister Jayanti Gupta and a brother Narendra Singh Dhoni who is also a local politician. His parents moved from Uttarakhand to Ranchi where his father Pan Singh worked in junior management positions in MECON. Dhoni completed his schooling from DAV Jawahar Vidya Mandir in Shyamali, Ranchi, Jharkhand. During school times he excelled in badminton and football and was selected for district level and club level in these sports. He was also a goalkeeper of his football team and was sent to play cricket as a wicket keeper in a local cricket club by his football coach and based on his performance he was picked up for the under-16 championship of Vinoo Mankad Trophy and he performed extremely well. He was also a regular wicket keeper for a local club called Commando cricket club from 1995-1998. His focused on cricket increased after he completed his 10th exams. He was also a Train Ticket Examiner (TTE) from 2001 to 2003 at Kharagpur railway station under South Eastern Railways in Midnapore district in West Bengal. In 1998, Dhoni was selected to play for the Central Coal Fields Limited (CCL) team by Deval Sahay and was included in the Bihar Under-19 squad for the 1998-99 season. Bihar U-19 team reached to the finals of the Cooch Behar Trophy in 1999-2000 and Dhoni made 84 to help Bihar put a total of 357. However, Bihars efforts were dwarfed by Punjab U-19s player and Dhonis future team mate Yuvraj Singh and Punjab team made the total of 358 runs. He made his Ranji trophy debut in 1999-2000 season representing Bihar when he was eighteen years old. In his debut match against Assam cricket team, he scored a half century scoring 68* in the second innings. He finished the season scoring 258 runs in 5 matches.

Dhoni made his maiden first class century against Bengal in the 2000-01 seasons in a losing cause. BCCIs small town talent-spotting initiative TRDW discovered Dhonis talent and he was discovered by Prakash Poddar who was the captain of Bengal in 1960s and he saw Dhoni play for Jharkhand at a match in Jamshedpur in 2003 and sent a report to the National Cricket Academy. He was then picked for the India A squad for a tour of Zimbabwe and Kenya. Dhoni had his best wicket keeping effort with 7 catches and 4 stumpings against the Zimbabwe XI in Harare Sports Club. In a tri-nation tournament between Kenya, India A and Pakistan A, Dhoni helped India A chase 223 against Pakistan A with a half century. He later also scored 120 and 119 against the same team in the series and scored 362 runs in 6 innings at an average of 72.40. Then the captain of India, Saurav Ganguly and Ravi Shastri were impressed by his performance. However, India A coach Sandeep Patil recommended Dinesh Karthik for the place of Wicket keeper-Batsman in the Indian squad. After making a mark in the India A squad, Dhoni was picked for the ODI squad for the Bangladesh tour in 2004/05 and he got run out for a duck in his debut match and he played an average game throughout the series. Despite the average performance, he was picked for the Pakistan ODI series. In the second match of the series and fifth one day of his international career, he scored 148 in Visakhapatnam only in 123 deliveries and made a record of highest score by an Indian Wicket keeper. He broke his own record before the end of the year. In the Sri Lankan bilateral ODI series in 2005, Dhoni was promoted to bat at NO. 3 in the third ODI and was promoted to accelerate the score. In the match Dhoni scored 183* off 145 balls and made the record of the highest score by any batsman in the second innings and the record still hasnt been broken. Dhoni was awarded the Man of the Series for his effort and was rewarded a B grade contract by BCCI. Due to his consistent performance in ODI, Dhoni overtook Ricky Pointing as number one batsman in the ICC ODI Rankings on 20th April 2006. However, his reign was just for a week as Adam Gilchrist performance against Bangladesh moved him to the top position.Dhoni was named as the Vice-captain for the ODI team for the South Africa series in Ireland and he was awarded A grade contract by BCCI.

He was also selected as the captain for the T20 Indian squad and led India in winning the T20 world cup ad this was the second time that India had won World Cup in any cricket format , first being Kapil Dev in 1983. In September 2007, he equaled his idol Adam Gilchrist in the most number of dismissals in a match. He topped the ICC ODI Batsman ranking in 2009 and kept the position with himself for several months. Dhoni also had a good test record and he played his first test in 2005 replacing Dinesh Karthik against Sri Lanka. He played his last test series in the 2014-15 season in Indias tour of Australia and following the third test in Melbourne he announced his retirement from test cricket. Dhoni is most popular for his 2011 Wold Cup victory where he played the inning of 91* in the world cup final and win the world cup for India. He was also declared as the Man of the Match of the World Cup Final in 2011. Under his captaincy India became the No. 1 Test team in the ICC Test Ranking of 2009. In March 2013, he became the most successful Indian Test Captain breaking record of Saurav Gangulys 21 victories from 49 tests.Dhoni married Sakshi Rawat, his schoolmate on 4th July 2010 and the couple has a baby girl named Ziva. He has been the recipient of many awards which includes ICC ODI player of the year in 2009 and 2009, Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award in 2007, Padma Shri, Indias fourth highest civilian award in 2009. Time magazine included Dhoni in its annual Time 100 list as one of the most influential people in the world. SportsPro in 2012 rated him as the sixteenth most marketable athlete in the world and in June 2015, Forbes ranked him at No. 23 of the list of highest paid athletes estimating his earnings at US$31 Million.