Celebrating Captain Cool: 5 most iconic images of MS Dhoni
On the 7th of July, former Indian captain MS Dhoni will turn 39 years old. After making his debut as a long-haired youngster, the wicket-keeper has gone to become arguably India's greatest ever captain and undoubtedly the world's greatest ever finisher.
In a career than has spanned 16 years thus far, MS Dhoni has achieved everything there is to achieve. He has led India to all three ICC trophies, lifted the ICC Test mace for the first time in the country's history, and won the Indian Premier League (IPL) with the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on multiple occasions.
It is incredibly difficult to represent what has been a storied career in just a few images, but in this article, we attempt to rank the five most iconic pictures featuring MS Dhoni.
#5 MS Dhoni collects the ICC Test mace
The ICC Test Championship was introduced in 2001 and until MS Dhoni led his team to No. 1 on the Test rankings, the mace changed hands only between Australia and South Africa.
At the end of 2009, India defeated Sri Lanka 2-0 in a three-Test series to claim the ultimate longest-format honour, led by the then-28-year-old captain. In the process, MS Dhoni became the first-ever captain to take India to No. 1 on the Test rankings, an incredible feat considering the amount of criticism levelled at his technique in the early stages of his career.
After a distinguished Test career in which he became the only Indian wicket-keeper batsman to score a double century (a marauding 224 in Chennai), MS Dhoni retired from the longest format of the game during the 2014-15 tour of Australia.