MS Dhoni is the greatest white ball captain that India has ever seen and he is someone who has been known as Captain Cool. Dhoni never loses his cool even if it is in a high pressure situation. He has been captain for India for close to 9 years and he has won all 3 ICC tournaments there is. The 2007 T20I World Cup, the 2011 ODI World Cup and the 2013 Champions Trophy. He was also one of the best middle order batters that India has ever seen. He has played 90 Test Matches for India and has made 4876 Runs and in the 350 ODIs he has played, he has made 10773 runs.

His captaincy stats are one of the best as well. He has been captain of India for 60 Test Matches and he has won 27 of them and he has a win % of 45. However his record in white ball cricket is much better. He has captained India in 200 ODIs and he has won 110 Matches and has a win % of 55. He has also captained India in 72 T20IS and he has won 41 Matches and he has won 56.80% of his matches. Let’s look at why he is called Captain Cool

The Serial Winner Captain Cool

MS Dhoni has always been known as Captain Cool. There are reasons behind it. For example whenever a match is tense he does not get shrey or show his emotions. He just tells the Bowlers where to bowl and they listen to him and the end result is a wicket. The spinners that bowled in his team say that he did 50% of the work from behind the stumps. The likes of Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin for CSK and Team India. And Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav in the later stages of his career. In a match against Bangladesh in the T20I World Cup 2016, they had 3 balls to get 2 runs and Hardik Pandya the bowler took 3 wickets with MS Dhoni having the fortitude to remove his glove and he ran out the batter of the last ball to win the match.

In the 2007 T20I World Cup Final against Pakistan, the last over was getting complicated and MS gave the ball to Joginder Sharma who won the World Cup for India. This was MSD being cool under extreme pressure. Again in the 2011 World Cup, Yuvraj Singh had done extremely well throughout the tournament but in the Final, Dhoni decided that he will go out ahead of Yuvraj Singh. And that decision turned out to be a masterstroke and the rest is history. During the IPL, MSD has not been under pressure in the finals and in the 2023 season he kept pushing himself lower down the order and in the final Ravindra Jadeja won the IPL for CSK. MS Dhoni us not called Captain Cool for no reason. The DRS review system which has been introduced a few years ago is called the Dhoni Review System as he got every review right and whatever the bowler said, he went with his gut.

Here are some more decisions that made MS Dhoni Captain Cool:

• In the 2023 IPL season, Ajinkya Rahane was picked up by CSK and Dhoni gave him the freedom to bat freely and asked him to bat at number 3. This was a masterstroke and he scored 326 Runs at a stunning strike rate of over 172. This shows the calmness that he has in Ajinkya Rahane to trust him and play him the entire season and Rahane has been retained in the 2024 IPL season.

• In the 2014 Test Match at Lord’s where Ishant Sharma picked up 7 wickets, it was MSD who asked Ishant Sharma to bowl only short balls as he had set the field for that and that paid off magnificently as India won that test match and Ishant Sharma got his name in the Lord’s Honors Board

• In the 2013 Champions Trophy Final, 15 runs were needed from the last over and the ball was swinging, he did not go to a fast bowler but he close Ravichandran Ashwin because there were 2 left handers and that move again paid off as India won the match and were crowned champions

• One of the greatest decisions in the career of MS Dhoni was when before the 2013 Champions Trophy he asked Rohit Sharma to bat at the top of the order and this is a move that Rohit Sharma is thankful for him even today. It has been 10 years and Rohit Sharma has become the greatest opener in ODIs.

• As an ultimate show of respect, he asked Sourav Ganguly to captain the final moments of his last test match in 2008, this was a decision that earned him a lot of appreciation that he would even think of something like this. This nsde Sourav Ganguly emotional