Each day, the 23rd of December remains a special day for fans of Indian cricket, and especially fans of MS Dhoni, for it was on this day that he made his international debut in a one-day international against Bangladesh in 2004 under the captaincy of the now BCCI President Sourav Ganguly.
Ot has been 15 years since. From juggling between being a ticket collector with the Indian Railways at Kharagpur station and cricket practice to taking an undefined break from international cricket, the former captain’s cricketing career has come a long way.
As everyone knows already, MS Dhoni was out for a golden duck in his ODI debut against Bangladesh. He was run-out but India won the game by 11 runs.
He had an ordinary debut series in Bangladesh, managing just 19 runs across the 3 matches. However, he announced his arrival in international cricket in style during a series against Pakistan at home in April 2005 and the rest, as they say, is history.
Against Pakistan, Sourav Ganguly promoted MS Dhoni to bat at No. 3 in Visakhapatnam and Dhoni smashed the memorable 123-ball 148 and became a regular in the Indian team from then. Dhoni is the only Indian captain to have won all the 3 major ICC trophies — the World Cup in 2011, the T20 World Cup in 2007, the Champions Trophy in 2013.
However, his career is now waning and on a day Dhoni is celebrating 15 years of his arrival, his former captain, Ganguly has picked Rishabh Pant over Dhoni in fantasy playing XI.
Sourav Ganguly’s fantasy XI: Sourav Ganguly (c), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, David Warner, Rishabh Pant (WK), Andre Russell, Jasprit Bumrah, Marcus Stoinis, Riyan Parag, Jofra Archer and Ravindra Jadeja.
Definitely Dhoni is not the great batsman he once was, but his wicketkeeping and his inputs to Virat Kohli still remain a very important ingredients in all of India’s winning recipes.
