Early life and Captainship of Dhoni....

Early life and background

Dhoni was born in Ranchi, Bihar (now inJharkhand), and he identifies as being a Rajput. His paternal village Lvali is in the Lamgarha block of the Almora District of Uttarakhand. Dhoni's parents, moved from Uttarakhand to Ranchi where his father Pan Singh worked in junior management positions in MECON. Dhoni has a sister Jayanti Gupta and a brother Narendra Singh Dhoni. Dhoni is a fan of Adam Gilchrist, and his childhood idols were cricket teammate Sachin Tendulkar, Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan and singer Lata Mangeshkar.
Dhoni studied at DAV Jawahar Vidya Mandir, Shyamali, Ranchi, Jharkhand where he initially excelled in badminton and football and was selected at district and club level in these sports. Dhoni was a goalkeeper for his football team and was sent to play cricket for a local cricket club by his football coach. Though he had not played cricket, Dhoni impressed with his wicket-keeping skills and became the regular wicketkeeper at the Commando cricket club (1995–1998). Based on his performance at club cricket, he was picked for the 1997/98 season Vinoo Mankad Trophy Under-16 Championship and he performed well. Dhoni focused on cricket after his 10th standard. Dhoni was aTravelling Ticket Examiner (TTE) at Kharagpur railway station from 2001 to 2003, under South Eastern Railway in Midnapore (W), a district in West Bengal. His colleagues remember him as a very honest, straightforward employee of the Indian Railways. But he also had a mischievous side to his personality. Once, while staying at the railway quarters, Dhoni and a couple of his friends covered themselves in white bedsheets and walked around in the complex late in the night. The night guards were fooled into believing that there were ghosts moving around in the complex. The story made big news on the next day.

Captainship of Dhoni

Dhoni was named the captain of Indian squad for the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 held in South Africa in September 2007. India were crowned champions as Dhoni led the team to victory against Pakistan in a thrilling contest. He, then, went on to become the ODI captain of the Indian team for the seven-match ODI series against Australia in September 2007. He made his debut as full-time Test captain of India during the fourth and final Test against Australia at Nagpur in November 2008 replacing Anil Kumble who was injured in the third test and who then announced his retirement. Dhoni was vice-captain in this series up to that point. India eventually won that Test thus clinching the series 2–0 and retained theBorder-Gavaskar Trophy. Dhoni had previously captained India on a stand-in basis against South Africa and Australia in 2008 and 2009 respectively.