Anmol Pattnayak

On this day, MS Dhoni won us the very 1st ever T20I WC back in 2007 & just before that Indian Cricket was going through the worse phase(Ganguly-Chappel Saga) & was coming from humiliation in ODI WC 2007 where player's homes were stoned including MSD's. Sachin, Ganguly, Dravid & many big names withdrew their names from T20I WC as they thought it will be a joke of a tournament & Indian Team went to South Africa under captaincy of young MS Dhoni without any coach with manager Lalchand Rajput. No one was expecting India to do well at this WC as we were just recovering from post ODI WC trauma. But young MS had some other plans. He assembed his team full of youngsters & was on a mission to surprise people of his own country with a World Cup trophy & bring cricket back to life in India. Young Indian team was against full strength squads of England, Pakistan, Australia, South Africa, etc & they conquered them all and it was not some fluke but MS Dhoni's captaincy masterclass as he took us through many close encounters with his sharp mind. & biggest proof of MS Dhoni's captaincy not just on ground but behind the scened was that he was even prepared for Ball Out Rule in case game gets tie & guess we had a tie game against Pakistan and MS Dhoni used part timers like Sehwag & Uthappa for bowl out instead of his front line bowlers and won the bowl out 3-0 handsomly. And that T20I WC win gave birth to IPL & rest is history. Since then India won 2 more WCs, 2 Champions Trophies & 5 Test Maces and made thousands of crores in revenue through IPL & International broadcasters. MS Dhoni is beyond all stats, his impact in Indian Cricket is just so so huge. And I would always put him among Virat & Sachin in greatness❤️