Captain Cool:Mahendra Singh Dhoni - Achievements as Captain

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the poster boy of Indian Cricket has seen everything in his life. From being taken to his house in a police van after India's exit from 2007 World Cup to being adored by the whole country for leading the team to victory in the Inaugural World T20. From then on there was no looking back. He has transformed the Indian team into an World beating one and his understanding with coach Gary Kirsten is also one of the reasons for this success. But the most important aspect of the current Indian team is "they don't panic under tough situations and they enjoy each others success". When he was appointed captain for the world T20 many eye brows were raised and only later that all came to know Sachin Tendulkar himself had recommended Dhoni for the captaincy. Here are some the feathers in Dhoni's cap thus far. You could also get some Small Business Loans here. Check it out.



Dhoni's Achievements:

• Team India went on to win the inaugural T20 cricket World Cup 2007
• First ever trilateral ODI series win in Australia versus Australia and Sri Lanka CB Series of 2007-08.
• First ever bilateral ODI series win in Sri Lanka (IDEA CUP) in August 2008.
• He captained Team India to win the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2008 at home versus Australia. India went on to win the coveted 4 match Test series (2-0).
• Also Team India to win the RBS Cup 2008 at home versus England. India went on to win the coveted 2 match Test series (1-0) and the 7 match ODI series (5-0) with the rest of the remaining two ODIs being abandoned.
• Under his captaincy, India beat Sri Lanka for the second time to clinch the IBDI Fortis Wealthsurance Cup ODI series 2009 (4-1) and the only Twenty20 International, the first Twenty20 International match held in Sri Lanka. This is the second straight series win for Team India in Sri Lanka.
• On the Indian tour of New Zealand in 2009 under his captaincy Indians created history by clinching their first ever ODI series in New Zealand, the National Bank Series 2009 . Before this, Indians had just won a Test series in New Zealand 41 years ago. Team India have comfortably won the 5 match ODI series (3-1) with an ODI being abandoned due to rain.
• M.S. Dhoni is the first Indian Captain to achieve nine consecutive ODI wins (between 14/11/2008 and 05/02/2009). Earlier the record of having eight consecutive ODI wins were owned by Sunil Gavaskar (5)- Kapil Dev (3), Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid.
• Previous captains Anil Kumble and Sourav Ganguly have said that under Dhoni India will reach greater heights and even all time great Richard Hadlee said that "Under Dhoni, India will become the world no.1 team" and he also said that by this 2-0 win that the Australian dominance in the cricket world had finally come to an end.
• As a farewell gift to former Indian captain, Sourav Ganguly who was set to retire after the Nagpur test against Australia, Dhoni asked Sourav Ganguly to lead the team for one last time towards the end of the Australian innings in the last test at Nagpur.
• Dhoni has already been compared to Australia's Steve Waugh for his captaincy skills. In the battle of nerves, the mental toughness accompanied with the cool temperament exhibited by Dhoni just resembles the times of Steve Waugh’s leadership.
• During the ODI Series 2009 in Sri Lanka, Dhoni had equalled the record of Zimbabwe's Andy Flower who has also played 46 ODIs in both roles of Wicket Keeper/Captain.
• Out of the 6 Test matches Dhoni has captained, the Indian Cricket Team has won 5 of them

This is just the begining. More to come from Mahi. The message from the Indian team to the rest of the cricket world is very clear - "Watch out we are coming at you"

India - New Zealand 3rd ODI: India win by 58 runs

Sachin Tendulkar scored his first century in New Zealand and helped India take an unbeatable 2-0 lead in the series with two matches left to play. Sachin was the real star on the day which nearly saw over 700 runs being scored. India lost Sehwag and Gambhir early but Yuvraj took control of the game with some hard hitting. He set the tone for Indian innings. India took the batting powerplay in 23rd over, a move that really paid off with India scoring 69 runs in those 5 overs. After Yuvi got out, Sachin took complete control and hit his 43rd ODI hundred. He and Dhoni pulverised the Kiwi attack. Sachin retired hurt on 163* and Raina took off as soon as he came and India ended with a massive 392 in 50 overs. Tim Southee had a terrible day as he conceeded 105 runs in his 10 overs. When New Zealand batted, Ryder and McCullum put on 166 for the first wicket before a flurry of wickets shifted the balance towards India. Ryder hit his maiden ODI century. Just when it seemed India would close the match, Mills and Southee took the Kiwis within striking distance. When Munaf Patel was removed from bowling by umpire Rudi Koertzen for bowling 2 waist high full tosses, the Kiwis would have been very upset as Munaf had totally lost the plot and was leaking runs. Yusuf Pathan, who came to finish that over picked up Mills' s wicket. And in the very next over Southee was picked up by Praveen to bring and end to the match. The small ground(combined with pitch) in Christchurch provided us the match which saw the maximum number of sixes hit. Next match is at Hamilton on Wednesday.

Brief Scores:
India 392 for 4 (Tendulkar 163*, Yuvraj 87, Dhoni 67) beat New Zealand 334 (Ryder 101, McCullum 71, Mills 54, Harbhajan 2-56) by 58 runs

Kid named after Sachin in New Zealand

When you hear that kids are named after Sachin Tendulkar one might think those kids are Indians but it isn't the case in New Zealand. Sachin Austin, a 9 year old New Zealand kid has been named after the great Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar. This indeed confirms Sachin's stature as one of the most respected and admired sports persons only in India but across the globe. And one must recollect that Sachin Tendulkar himself was named after the legendary music composer Sachin Dev Burman. And the name "Sachin" has crossed land, religion and countries. I happened to know about this today while watching the third ODI between India and New Zealand. Sachin Austin was asked who was he named after with Sachin Tendulkar standing near him and the kid said it was the greatest moment in his life. And it was on a day when Sachin had scored his first century in the country. I'm not sure how many of them are named after the Little master but the count will certainly be increasing.