MS Dhoni is the only captain to have won all three of the ICC’s major white-ball trophies: the World T20 in 2007, the World Cup in 2011 and the Champions Trophy in 2013. A wicketkeeper and finisher from Ranchi who learned his cricket far from the game’s traditional centres, he also took India to the top of the Test rankings and won five IPL titles with Chennai Super Kings.
Name: Mahendra Singh Dhoni | Born: 7 July 1981, Ranchi, Bihar (now Jharkhand) | Sport: Cricket | Position: Wicketkeeper, right-handed middle-order batter
A goalkeeper turned wicketkeeper
Dhoni played football as a goalkeeper at school in Ranchi before a coach asked him to keep wicket for the cricket team. He took to it, and to batting, with a style that owed little to coaching manuals: a strong bottom hand, powerful wrists and a habit of hitting the ball very hard and very straight. Between 2001 and 2003 he worked as a travelling ticket examiner for Indian Railways at Kharagpur station while playing for Bihar and Jharkhand, and strong performances for India A in Kenya in 2004 brought him to the selectors’ attention.
Visakhapatnam and Jaipur
He made his one-day debut against Bangladesh on 23 December 2004 and was run out first ball. In only his fifth match, against Pakistan at Visakhapatnam in April 2005, he scored 148. Later that year, against Sri Lanka in Jaipur, he made an unbeaten 183 in a chase, a record at the time for a wicketkeeper in one-day internationals. His Test debut followed against Sri Lanka in Chennai in December 2005.
Three white-ball titles
Dhoni was given the captaincy of India’s young side for the first World T20 in South Africa in 2007, with several senior players choosing to miss the event. India won it, beating Pakistan by five runs in the final in Johannesburg, and Dhoni soon became captain in all formats.
The 2011 World Cup was the high point. In the final at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, chasing 275 against Sri Lanka, he promoted himself above Yuvraj Singh and made 91 not out from 79 balls. He finished the match with a six off Nuwan Kulasekara, and India won their first World Cup for 28 years. Two years later, in England, he led a new-look team to the ICC Champions Trophy.
Test captaincy and the number one ranking
Under Dhoni, India reached first place in the ICC Test rankings for the first time in December 2009. He also led them to a 4-0 home series win over Australia in 2013. Away from home the results were harder to come by, including heavy defeats in England and Australia in 2011-12. He captained India in 60 Tests and retired from the format after the Melbourne Test in December 2014, finishing with 4,876 runs at 38.09, six hundreds and a top score of 224 against Australia in Chennai.
The finisher
In one-day cricket Dhoni was one of the best finishers the game has seen, and he liked to take a chase deep before attacking. He scored 10,773 runs in 350 matches at an average of 50.57, a rare figure for a player who batted so often in the lower middle order. Behind the stumps his glovework was quick rather than classical, and his 123 one-day stumpings are a world record. He led India in 332 international matches across the three formats, also a record. He played his last match for India in the 2019 World Cup semi-final against New Zealand, when he was run out by a direct hit, and announced his international retirement on 15 August 2020.
Chennai’s captain
In the Indian Premier League Dhoni has been the face of Chennai Super Kings since the first season in 2008, apart from the two years in which the franchise was suspended. He captained them to titles in 2010, 2011, 2018, 2021 and 2023, and to the Champions League T20 in 2010 and 2014. He was made an honorary Lieutenant Colonel of the Parachute Regiment of the Territorial Army in 2011.
Career record and honours
- Tests: 90 matches, 4,876 runs, average 38.09, 6 hundreds, highest score 224; 256 catches and 38 stumpings
- One-day internationals: 350 matches, 10,773 runs, average 50.57, 10 hundreds, highest score 183 not out; 321 catches and 123 stumpings
- T20 internationals: 98 matches, 1,617 runs, average 37.60; 57 catches and 34 stumpings
- Captain of India’s winning sides at the 2007 World T20, 2011 World Cup and 2013 Champions Trophy
- India reached No. 1 in the Test rankings under his captaincy, 2009
- IPL titles with Chennai Super Kings: 2010, 2011, 2018, 2021, 2023
- ICC ODI Cricketer of the Year: 2008 and 2009
- Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna: 2007-08
- Padma Shri: 2009; Padma Bhushan: 2018
- ICC Cricket Hall of Fame: 2025
