An everyday man who went on to be popularly known as the ‘Captain Cool’ is none other than our very own Indian Men’s (ODI & T20Is) Cricket Team Captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni or simply known as Dhoniiiiii....
His journey marks from being a simple small town boy to the man who led a team to victory in the T-20 World Cup.
Inspirational Start
There was once a time when the Indian Cricket Team was simply filled with the city kids. Due to excellent infrastructure and good scope for the game in cities, many small town boys would not succeed defeating them in the Ranji Trophy. But this man proved it all wrong. MSD had seen a dream, which many feared to see.
Hailing from a very small town of Ranchi, Dhoni dared to dream and with courage and guts make that dream a reality. Since a very young age, he idolized Sachin Tendulkar who is known as the God of Cricket and Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan. He started his career as a Ticket Collector in Indian Railways. His hard work and never-give-up spirit finally landed him in International Cricket in 2003.
Becoming a Sensation and Captaincy
Dhoni was not only known for his cricket but was also very popular for his lengthy wavy hair style. In fact, it had then become a trend that every boy in the country now wanted to adorn the “Dhoni Hairstyle”.
Dhoni started making rounds for his cool attitude – something we all most aspire to emulate. We would find him with a smile even in the toughest of games. This calm attitude of his landed him as the Captain of the team. He had not only made his dream of playing alongside his idol Sachin a reality but had become his captain.
India vs Pakistan, ICC World T20 final, 2007: The victory that flagged off Dhoni's legacy of being the 'Captain Cool' that he turned out to be. After Gautam Gambhir's flamboyant 75 propelled India to a competitive 157/5, Pakistan kept losing wickets at regular intervals, though their asking rate was never going beyond control.
In the end, it boiled down to Pakistan needing 13 off the last over, with Misbah-ul-Haq on strike. Dhoni made the historic decision of handing Joginder Sharma the ball for the over, which eventually reaped rich dividends he induced Misbah into playing a scoop towards fine-leg, only to get caught by S Sreesanth. India won a heartstopper of a match by five runs, and managed to bury ghosts of the first-round exit from the 50-over World Cup earlier that year.