Mahendra Singh Dhoni is the current captain of the Indian Cricket team. He was born on 7 July 1981 in Ranchi, Jharkhand to Pan Singh and Devaki Devi. His paternal village Lvali is in the Lamgarha block of the Almora District of Uttarakhand. Dhoni’s parents, moved from Uttarakhand to Ranchi where Pan Singh worked in junior management positions in MECON. Dhoni has a sister Jayanti and a brother Narendra.
Dhoni studied at DAV Jawahar Vidya Mandir, Shyamali, (now the school is known as JVM, Shyamli, Ranchi) Ranchi, Jharkhand where he initially excelled in badminton and football and was selected at district and club level in these sports. Dhoni was a goalkeeper for his football team and was sent to play cricket for a local cricket club by his football coach. Though he had not played cricket, Dhoni impressed with his wicket-keeping skills and became the regular wicketkeeper at the Commando cricket club (1995 – 1998).
Based on his performance at club cricket, he was picked for the 1997/98 season Vinoo Mankad Trophy Under-16 Championship and he performed well. Dhoni focused on cricket after his 10th standard. Dhoni is an aggressive right-handed batsman and wicket-keeper. The Indian team in the 2000s saw the use of Rahul Dravid as the wicket-keeper to ensure that the wicket-keeper spot didn’t lack in batting talent. The Indian cricket establishment also saw the entry of wicket-keeper/batsmen from the junior ranks with talents like Parthiv Patel and Dinesh Karthik both India U-19 Captains in the test squads.
With Dhoni making a mark in the India-A squad, he was picked in the ODI squad for the Bangladesh tour in 2004/05. Dhoni did not have a great start to his ODI career, getting run out for a duck on debut. In spite of an average series against Bangladesh, Dhoni was picked for the Pakistan ODI series. In the second match of the series, Dhoni in his fifth one-day international scored 148 in Vishakapatnam off only 123 deliveries. Dhoni’s 148 erased the earlier record for the highest score by an Indian wicketkeeper, a record that he would re-write before the end of the year.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Following his good one-day form against Sri Lanka, Dhoni replaced Dinesh Karthik in December 2005 as the Indian Test wicket-keeper. Under his captaincy, India won the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, CB Series of 2007-08 and the Border-Gavaskar trophy 2008 in which they beat Australia 2-0. He also led the team to their first ever bilateral ODI series wins in Sri Lanka and New Zealand.
Dhoni has also been the recipient of many awards including the ICC ODI Player of the Year award in 2008 (the first Indian player to achieve this feat), the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award and the Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian honour in 2009. Also Dhoni named as Skipper of Wisden’s first-ever Dream Test Team in 2009.
In the history of test match India become first time number one in December 2009, under leadership of Dhoni. Under leadership of M.S. Dhoni, India is continued on the way of success for few years.
And, we hope that India will still on the path of glory in cricket history in future under his brilliant, tactful and marvelous captaincy by means of winning a lot of matches and series and the world cup too.