Childhood
Mahendra Singh Dhoni was born on July 7, 1981 at Ranchi, Jharkhand located in the east corner of India. He studied at DAV Jawahar Vidya Mandir where he was keenly interested in football and badminton. He was the goalkeeper of his football team and was able to play for the district and state level. But on the insistence of his football coach, he tried out to play cricket.
Early Career
He was able to perform wicket keeping especially well which allowed him entry into a local cricket club called the Commando cricket club where he played from 1995-1998. In the 1997/98 season, his superb performances in the Vinoo Mankad Under-16 Championship attracted the selector’s eye.
He was selected to the Bihar U-19 squad the very next season. His improved batting and keeping performances led him to be selected to the Bihar Ranji Trophy squad for the 1999/00 season. He made his debut against the Assam team by scoring an unbeaten score of 68.
He scored his first century the next season but was only able to score at a average of around 40 per game by the 2003 season. In 2003, he was selected to the India A team which went to tour Kenya to play a tri-series tournament with Pakistan A as the third team. In the series he scored 362 runs at an average of 72.40 with back to back centuries against Pakistan.
On the back of his sterling performances in domestic competitions and international tours, he was given a place in the ODI squad for the tour to Bangladesh in 2004/05. On his debut he was run out for a duck but in his 5th ODI match against Pakistan, he scored 148 off 123 balls to be called a match winning player in the Indian squad. With this performance he had now recorded the highest score by an Indian wicket keeper as well as cemented his place in the side.
In November 2005, while chasing a stiff target of 299, he scored 183 off 145balls to take India to victory. He won the ‘Man of that Series’ award for top scoring in the tournament with 346 runs. In the 2007 World Cup he could only score 29 runs in the 3 matches with two ducks which contributed to the knockout in the group stages. Again Dhoni bounced back with impressive performances which led him to be made the captain of the Indian T20 squad in September 2007. He immediately made impact as he led the team to win the inaugural World Cup T20 in South Africa.
As a Captain
He was made the captain of the ODI team in 2007 and the Test team in 2008. In 2009, he scored 1198 runs in 24 innings at an average of 70.43 to be the highest scorer of the year in ODI’s.
In the same year under his captaincy, India was able to draw against South Africa 1-1 to become the No.1 Test team in the world. He also hit an unbeaten 91 to beat Sri Lanka in the 2011 World Cup finals making him one of the most successful captains in the history of Indian cricket.He is the holder of numerous awards in international cricket.
He has been part of the ICC World ODI XI for 6 years in a row from 2008-2013. He has been awarded the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna which is the highest sports honor given by the government of India in the year 2008. He advertises more than 15 products as of 2013 and is one of the most marketable players in the world. In June 2013, he was reported to be the 16th highest paid sportsman in the world with yearly earnings of $31 million. He is one of the most successful Indian sportsmen that the world has ever seen.
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