Dhoni to get Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award

New Delhi, Aug 4 (ANI): Indian skipper for ODIs and Twenty-20 Mahendra Singh Dhoni was selected for the prestigious Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, country's top most award for a sportsperson.


Expert committee headed by flying Sikh Milkha Singh on Monday decided to confer the award on Dhoni for leading India to the Twenty-20 World Cup triumph, making him only the second cricketer after Sachin Tendulkar to get the honour.


Sources in the Sports Ministry, however, informed that an official announcement would follow only after August 20.


Meanwhile, BCCI Chief Administrative Officer Ratnakar Shetty hailed the decision.


"On two occasions, we felt let down when Rahul Dravid didn't get Khel Ratna Award and Yuvraj Singh was denied Arjuna Award. Dravid was in good form, we had won 16 ODIs on the trot and the team was on a high -- still he did not get the award," Shetty said.


"Yuvraj too was unlucky not to get Arjuna after two years of consistent performance. We are happy Dhoni got it," he added. (ANI)

ICC awards for Dhoni, Yuvraj

Calcutta: India one-day captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the ODI Player of the Year award at the ICC Awards ceremony in Dubai on Wednesday. Yuvraj Singh became the inaugural winner of the Twenty20 International Performance of the Year award in recognition of his amazing six sixes in one over during the World Twenty20 in South Africa in 2007.

Dhoni also found a berth in the ODI Team of the Year along with Sachin Tendulkar. Virender Sehwag was the sole Indian representative in the Test Team of the Year. Dhoni beat off tough competition from teammate Sachin Tendulkar, Australia fast bowler Nathan Bracken and Pakistan batsman Mohammed Yousuf.

During the voting period, Dhoni played 39 ODIs and scored 1,298 runs at an average of 49.92 and at a rate of 82.46 runs per 100 balls faced. He also hit a century and nine fifties, making sure he led his team from the front during this period. He is currently ranked No.1 in the ICC Player Rankings for ODI batsmen.

“I would like to thank the voting academy for considering me to be deserving of this award. I am really happy to get this — it’s a great privilege,” Dhoni said.

According to the awards voting academy, Yuvraj’s effort was the most impressive performance in the past 12 months. He beat off competition from teammate Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who led his team to victory at World Twenty20 in South Africa, Chris Gayle who scored 117 off just 57 balls against South Africa in the opening match of the competition and Australia’s Brett Lee, who became the first bowler to take a hattrick in the event against Bangladesh in Cape Town.

“For me it was very important just to get nominated. There were other great performances during the past year. For example, Gayle’s innings in the World Twenty20 was fantastic. I am very happy to collect this award and I would like to congratulate the other players who were nominated alongside me,” Yuvraj said after collecting the award from Arjuna Ranatunga.

Significantly, Andrew Symonds has been included in the ODI Team of the Year. Ricky Ponting has been named captain of the ODI side while Graeme Smith will lead the Test team.

The selection panel was chaired by Clive Lloyd and included former Australia captain Greg Chappell, recently retired South Africa allrounder Shaun Pollock, former Sri Lanka opener Sidath Wettimuny and former Bangladesh batsman Athar Ali Khan.

Dhoni's dad: 'Achcha laga'

It has been a busy, exciting two days at the sleepy Shyamali Colony in Doranda, north Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand.

Cameramen and journalists have been impatiently swarming about a modest home, fronted by beds of flowers, in this staunchly middle-class neighbourhood. And a posse of Jharkhand police have hovered protectively, making certain peace is maintained. In town, a few kilometres away, fans have been delightedly distributing mithai.

This season of jubilation has not affected the residents of this quiet home -- Pan and Devki Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni's [Images] parents.

They are, as always, calm and collected.

Pan Singh, who only heard the news of his son's appointment as India's ODI captain, when the story broke on television does not overflow with emotions when rediff.com spoke to him on Wednesday night. "Achcha laga", he says.

Says a friend of the family: "They are very down to earth people. Always cool and composed. Never the type of people to get very happy or very sad. His mother was somewhat more jubilant."

The Uttarakhand Association in Ranchi held a small puja a few streets away, on Tuesday, to celebrate the success of one of their own. Dhoni's family migrated to Ranchi from Almora in Uttarakhand. Pan and and Devki Singh attended the puja.

Dhoni to captain Twenty-20 WC

Mahendra Singh Dhoni has become the first small-town cricketer to be named as the skipper of the Indian team when he was given the responsibility to lead the team in the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa by the selectors on Tuesday in Mumbai. Yuvraj Singh has been named as the vice-captain of the team for the World Cup.

Test and ODI team discards Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh and Irfan Pathan were also named in the 15-member team for the Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa.

There is more good news for the Pathan household as Irfan’d elder brother Yusuf Pathan, who is a handy lower order batsman and an off-break bowler, has also made it to the Twenty20 World Cup squad.

The squad for both the Twenty20 World Cup, which will be held from September 11-28, and the seven-match One Day series against England was announced by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Secretary Niranjan Shah.

Dhoni is already the vice-captain of the One-Day team and his elevation as the skipper of the Twenty20 team was very much on the cards after senior players like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid, who is also the skipper of the Test and One-Day team, informed the selectors that they did not want to be a part of the team for the Twenty20 World Cup.

Pacer Zaheer Khan has also been rested while S Sreesanth has been dropped from the Indian ODI team for the series against England.

However, there was good news for Munaf Patel, who has been recalled to replace Sreesanth after being ignored for Test series and the preceding ODI against Ireland and South Africa.

Indian squad for Twenty20 World Cup: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (C), Yuvraj Singh (Vice-captain), Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Ajit Agarkar, Dinesh Karthik, Gautam Gambhir, Robin Uthappa, Joginder Sharma, Yusuf Pathan, Piyush Chawla, S Sreesanth, Irfan Pathan, Rudra Pratap Singh and Rohit Sharma.

His sister, Jayati says that, “Marriage proposals are raining on us,”. But the Dhoni family does not have any plans to marry him off right now. Even the 24-year-old himself is not ready to settle down yet. “We will think about marriage after three years,” Jayati said. And what kind of girl do they have in mind for Dhoni? “We will prefer a good-natured girl who can adjust in our family,” she said.

The Dhoni family is also receiving scores of letters and greeting cards from fans. Many letters reach the Dhonis even without the complete address. A simple “MS Dhoni, Ranchi” seems enough.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni - the Man of the Match

Laurels don’t seem to end for the new and young Indian skipper M.S. Dhoni aka Mahi. After the glorious win of the inaugural World Cup 20-20 championship, Dhoni has won the ODI match against Australia in Chandigarh, holding the Man of the Match title.

The match was a crucial one in the India- Australia series because India had already lost 2 matches in the course of 7. So the players tried to perform to the best of their capacities. The master blaster Sachin Tendulkar gave a wonderful start with 79 runs while Mahendra contributed 50 runs in 35 balls (not out) and wrapped up the Indian innings beautifully.

When asked about how he felt about this long awaited victory, Mahi gave the credit to the entire team especially to Sachin, RP Singh and Harbhajan. He said that beating Australia is a team effort.

Family

Dhoni's family hails from the northern, hilly region of Almora in what is now Uttaranchal state, but his father moved to Ranchi on taking up a modest job.Dhoni's father, Pan Singh, says: "I was a low-scale wage employee with limited resources. "Probably I couldn't support him as a cricket player, but we never opposed his decisions."

Dhoni's family house in Lwali, accessible only on foot, is now a destination for visitors from nearby villages. Dhoni's father may have left several years ago to settle down in Ranchi, but the charm of his native home always brought him back and with him, a very young Mahendra. "Even as a child he was never interested in his studies. He would come here to village and get all the boys together and go play with them in the fields," said his Uncle, Dhanpat Singh Dhoni.

His sister, Jayati says that, “Marriage proposals are raining on us,”. But the Dhoni family does not have any plans to marry him off right now. Even the 24-year-old himself is not ready to settle down yet. “We will think about marriage after three years,” Jayati said. And what kind of girl do they have in mind for Dhoni? “We will prefer a good-natured girl who can adjust in our family,” she said.

The Dhoni family is also receiving scores of letters and greeting cards from fans. Many letters reach the Dhonis even without the complete address. A simple “MS Dhoni, Ranchi” seems enough.

Biography

Name : Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Nickname : Mahi
Nationality : Indian
Date of Birth : 7 July 1981
Place of Birth: Ranchi, Bihar

Batting style : Right hand batsman
Bowling style : Right arm medium
Field position: Wicketkeeper
Clubs played : Jharkhand

M S Dhoni was born and brought up in the city of Ranchi. He has two siblings. A sister who is married and a brother who lives in Almora. Almora is a high-lying town at the foot of the Himalaya which is his father's home town. His father's name is Pan Singh and mother's name is Devki Devi.

MS Dhoni, made his debut for Jharkhand in the 1999-2000 season as an eighteen year old. He was noticed by the national team selectors in 2004 after his performances in first class tournaments such as the Deodhar Trophy and the Duleep Trophy.

Dhoni was selected to represent India 'A' on a tour of Kenya and his performances were good enough to win him selection in the Indian national team, making his one-day international debut against Bangladesh in Chittagong in December of that year.

Luck wasnt on his side in the first four matches he played. Where as on the fifth match which was played against Pakistan in Visakhapatnam, Dhoni came to the crease one down and managed to score 148 runs from just 123 balls. He hit 15 boundaries and four sixes. He got his first man of the match award that day.

On the 31st of October, Dhoni broke the record of highest runs scored by a wicket keeper by securing 183 runs against Srilanka which was played at Jaipur, beating Adam Gilchrist's former record of 172 runs.

On the 2nd of December 2005, Dhoni made his Test cricket debut against Srilanka which was played in Chennai, India.

He is currently ranked number one in the official ICC cricket rankings for batsmen in Limited over internationals.

Dhoni's current batting average in ODIs is just over 50 (as of April 2006), the highest by any Indian player with more than 20 innings. With a career ODI batting strike rate of more than 100 he remains the only batsman with the unique double of a 50+ average scored at more than a run a ball. Currently, Dhoni has one of the highest strike rates in the world (103.00 runs per hundred balls). With 44 sixes in 38 ODI innings, Dhoni has hit more sixes than he's played internationals.

He made his maiden Test century against Pakistan in the 2nd Test at Faisalabad in January 2006, reaching the landmark in just 93 balls. Dhoni's career batting average at the end of the ODI series against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi stands at 52.76, which is the fourth highest for any batsman having scored at least 1,000 runs in one-day internationals, behind Australians, Mike Hussey Michael Bevan, and Englishman Kevin Pietersen.