MS Dhoni

Lore & Background

Born in Ranchi, Dhoni made his first-class debut for Bihar in 1999. He made his debut for the Indian cricket team on 23 December 2004 in an ODI against Bangladesh and played his first Test a year later against Sri Lanka. In 2007, he became the captain of the ODI team before taking over as captain in all formats by 2008. Dhoni retired from Test cricket in 2014 but continued playing in limited overs cricket until 2019. He has scored 17,266 runs in international cricket, including 10,773 runs at an average of more than 50 in ODIs. In the Indian Premier League (IPL), Dhoni plays for the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), leading them to the finals on ten occasions and winning the title five times (2010, 2011, 2018, 2021, and 2023)– a record he jointly shares with Rohit Sharma. He has also led CSK to two Champions League T20 titles in 2010 and 2014. Dhoni is among the few batsmen to have scored more than five thousand runs in the IPL, as well as being the first wicket-keeper to do so.

In Their Own Story

The floodlights hummed. The pitch at the Delhi ground was a pale strip under the night sky, the oval stretching out into the dark beyond the ropes. Dhoni stood at the non-striker's end, helmet off, bat resting across his shoulders. The crowd — a sea of blue and white, scarves draped over shoulders, children perched on fathers' necks — had gone quiet in that particular way that means everyone is holding their breath simultaneously. The bowler ran in. Dhoni did not shift. He did not widen his stance. He simply let the ball come, and when it did, the bat turned like a blade, and the leather left the willow with a sound like a crack of thunder inside a small room. It sailed over the boundary, over the advertising boards, over the heads of the people in the stands, and landed somewhere in the dark beyond the city. And then — silence. One second. Two. And the stadium detonated. Dhoni walked to the rope. Tapped the bat. Smiled, barely. The Delhi faithful roared as if the sky were splitting open, and for that one night, the city belonged to the quiet man from Ranchi.

Reader's Guide

Dhoni was awarded India's highest sporting honour, the Khel Ratna Award, in 2008. He received the Padma Shri in 2009 and the Padma Bhushan in 2018. He holds an honorary rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Parachute Regiment of the Indian Territorial Army, presented in 2011. In June 2025, he was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

Did You Know?

• Dhoni's family spells the surname as 'Dhauni'; the spelling 'Dhoni' emerged due to a mistake in his school certificates.
• From 2001 to 2003, Dhoni worked as a Travelling Ticket Examiner (TTE) at Kharagpur under the South Eastern Railway zone of Indian Railways.
• He made his Ranji Trophy debut for Bihar against Assam in the 1999–2000 season, scoring 68 runs in the second innings.
• Dhoni scored his maiden first-class century for Bihar against Bengal in the 2000–01 Ranji Trophy season.
• He is the only captain to win three different limited overs ICC tournaments: the 2007 World Twenty20, the 2011 Cricket World Cup, and the 2013 Champions Trophy.