The ticket examiner from Ranchi who won every limited-overs trophy
Between 2001 and 2003, MS Dhoni checked tickets on trains out of Kharagpur for Indian Railways. A few years later he was captaining India, and by 2013 he had become the only captain in international cricket to lift every ICC limited-overs trophy, including a World Cup he sealed with an unbeaten 91 in the final.
Dhoni was born in Ranchi on 7 July 1981, the youngest of three children, to parents from a village in what is now Uttarakhand. His family actually spells the name Dhauni; Dhoni came from a mistake on his school certificates that was never corrected. At school he began as a football goalkeeper until his coach, Keshav Banerjee, steered him towards cricket and the wicket-keeper's gloves.
He came up through club and age-group cricket in Bihar, made his first-class debut at 18, and was spotted by a board scheme hunting for talent in small towns. On an India A tour of Zimbabwe and Kenya in 2004 he took seven catches and four stumpings in a single match. That earned an ODI call-up for Bangladesh in December 2004, where he was run out for nought on debut. Setbacks continued: after India crashed out of the 2007 World Cup, his house in Ranchi was vandalised.
Months later the tide turned. Named captain for the first World Twenty20 in September 2007, he led India to the title with a final win over Pakistan and was soon captain in every format. In 2011 India won the World Cup on home soil, and the 2013 Champions Trophy completed his set. He scored 17,266 international runs, including 10,773 in ODIs at an average above 50, and captained more international matches than anyone else.
In the Indian Premier League he took Chennai Super Kings to ten finals and five titles, a record shared with Rohit Sharma, and was the first wicket-keeper to pass 5,000 IPL runs. His honours include the Khel Ratna, the Padma Bhushan, an honorary lieutenant colonel's rank in the Territorial Army's Parachute Regiment, and a place in the ICC Hall of Fame in June 2025.
Source: MS Dhoni
