Happy Birthday MS Dhoni: Man who changed Indian cricket

Former Indian cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni is celebrating his 39^th Birthday on Tuesday. The Current Situation has led to new ways of celebrating with limited family members only while friends and relatives joining the celebration over Whatsapp or Zoom Video Call.

The wicket-keeper batsman has not been seen in international cricket for long time but he is confirmed to make his comeback in IPL 2020. Many fans who were awaiting his return are being made to wait due to the COVID-19 Pandemic which has forced the tournament to be postponed.

A lot has been said and written about MS Dhoni, one of the greatest captain and wicket-keeper batsman to have played the game. He was the creator of Helicopter Shot in international cricket and the videos of this particular shot have gone viral on social media. He has been mentioned in various books, a movie and continues to be quite popular in social media  discussions despite having not played international cricket for a year now.

Love for Football
Dhoni played football and aspired to be a goalkeeper before switching to cricket. His love for football remains intact even today and even co-owns a team in Indian Super League. He is a co-owner for Indian Super League club Chennaiyin and is considered to be the best footballer among his Indian cricket teammates

Love for bikes
Dhoni has a garage full of motorcycles and that was even mentioned in his biopic, MS Dhoni: The Untold Story. Wheneverhe is free, he loves to ride these bikes. He has even shared or people have recorded his videos while he has been some or the other bike.

Records
Dhoni holds the record for the highest score in One Day Internationals by a wicket-keeper batsman. In  2005 He hammered the Sri Lankan bowlers all over the ground and ended up scoring 183 runs from just 145 deliveries in that match played at Jaipur, India. His innings also helped India win that match. Dhoni also holds the record for highest score by an Indian wicket-keeper in a test match. During the first innings of the Chennai Test against Australia in 2013, Dhoni scored a double century (224 runs). This remains the highest score by an Indian specialist wicketkeeper-batsman. Dhoni is the recipient of the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna the Padma Shri as well as the Padma Bhushan award.

Achievements as India captain
The wicketkeeper-batsman, who is regarded as one of the most successful captains of the Indian cricket team. One of the most successful captains to have played for Team India, Dhoni is the only Indian captain who has led the side to victory in all three ICC trophies. In 2007, he led the Indian team to a victory in the inaugural T20 World Cup. In 2011, India won the ODI World Cup after 28 years under the leadership of Dhoni. In 2013, Dhoni led Team India defeated England to win the ICC Champions Trophy.

Conferred the rank of honorary Lieutenant Colonel
In 2011, MS Dhoni became the first Indian cricketer to be conferred the rank of honorary lieutenant colonel. He has been seen in Army camp whenever he has got some free time from the busy schedule of cricket.

His teammates from Cricket, celebrities from Bollywood and other industries  as well as his millions of fans have been wishing captain cool on social media. One of the cricketer whose tweet is much awaited is former Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag who has his own unique style of wishing people and is very poplar on twitter. Current Team India captain Virat Kohli also wished Dhoni and wished him good health and happiness. A lot of celebrities from other sports as well other industries like Bollywood also wished MSD.

In his biopic, the character of Dhoni was played by late actor Sushant Singh Rajput. Social Media especially Twitter and Instagram has been filled with images of Sushant and Dhoni. Fans have also urged Dhoni to work towards getting justice for Sushant’s death. Although, we have not got any response from Dhoni via video or through social media platform since the actor’s death.

Apart from his cricketing talent, MS Dhoni is also known for his cool and calm behaviour on the field and also role model for many youngsters. Although, he has been part of some controversies, but that has not affected his fan base. In the past he has been accused of keeping out some senior players out of the team due to fitness issues as well as Conflict of interest during the Indian Premier League. But Dhoni has handled the situation very well each time and managed to keep his focus on cricket and stay away from negativity. He has been successful both as a captain as well as batsman in all three formats i.e Test, ODI and T20 and the fans hope they still get to see him in action on the field soon.