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 Dhoni.

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.

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.

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 Hai

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.

It was one of the tough times for Dhoni. In 2007 world cup scenario, India unexpectedly walked out of the world cup series, after losses to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in the group stage. Dhoni was out for a duck in both these matches and scored just 29 runs in the tournament. Because of this bad performance, Dhoni faced the anger of his fans and his house which was under construction in his hometown Ranchi got destroyed by political activists.

Attracted by his good performance against Sri Lanka in ODI, Dhoni replaced Dinesh Karthik for the Indian Test wicket-keeper in 2005. Dhoni made his maiden half-century in the second test and his quick scoring rate (half century came off 51 balls) helped India in setting a target of 436 and the Sri Lankans were bowled out for 247. India’s matches with Pakistan and West Indies made him look like an aggressive player. In 2009 series with Sri Lanka, Dhoni scored two centuries thereby leading India to a 2-0 victory. MSD played his last test series in India’s tour of Australia in the season 2014–15 captaining India in the second and third tests. Following the third Test in Melbourne, Dhoni announced his retirement from the test series.