Chennai Super Kings may be struggling in the IPL 2022 as it is placed on the 9th spot in the points table with just 3 wins in its 10 matches but nobody can deny the fact that CSK is one of the strongest teams of the tournament and MS Dhoni has played an important role in the team’s success. The Chennai franchise has won the IPL trophies four times under the leadership of MS Dhoni but he gave up the team’s captaincy just before the start of the IPL 2022 and Ravindra Jadeja was appointed as the new skipper of CSK. However after continuous losses in the tournament, Ravindra Jadeja requested MSD to take up the captaincy once again to which Mahi obliged and he is once again leading the team now.
Dhoni who is known for his cool and calm attitude has achieved many milestones during his captaincy of the Indian national team. Moreover, it was under his leadership that Indian team won the 2007 ICC T20 World Cup, 2011 ICC World Cup and 2013 Champions Trophy.
MS Dhoni made his ODI debut in the year 2004 and it took him around a year to debut in test matches. Since then, he has made the country proud on many occasions. However, there were few other cricketers who made their debut with or after Dhoni’s debut but they were not able to sustain for long. Here is a list of such cricketers:
1. Venugopal Rao:
Venugopal Rao played for Andhra Pradesh in domestic cricket for majority part of his career and he made his debut for India in the year 2005. The right-handed batsman who was also an off-break bowler was not able to secure his berth in the Indian team for a long time as he used to be included only when another player went for rest or got injured and later on his poor form at domestic level further reduced his chances of selection.
2. Joginder Sharma:
No Indian cricket fan will ever be able to forget the last over of the 2007 T20 World Cup final which was played between India and Pakistan, so how we can forget Joginder Sharma who bowled that over. Though Joginder and Dhoni made their debut in the same match, the former played only 4 ODIs and 4 T20Is at the international level. He kept on playing cricket at domestic level till 2017 and currently he is serving as the Deputy Superintendent of Police, Haryana. In fact, many media outlets shared about the good work done by him during the COVID-19 pandemic.
3. Manoj Tiwary:
The cricketer from Bengal was considered as the next big thing in the Indian cricket world but because of huge competition and injuries, he was not able to get many chances. As of now, he has joined state politics but he still plays cricket at domestic level.
4. Pragyan Ojha:
Pragyan Ojha represented the country in all the three formats but he played more in the longest format despite the fact that he had to compete with the established bowlers such as Harbhajan Singh and Amit Mishra. He also had to face the challenges posed by Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja who were trying to make a place for themselves in the team as well. However his international career was not very long as he played in 24 test matches, 18 ODIs and 6 T20Is.
5. Subramaniam Badrinath:
Subramaniam Badrinath’s performances at the domestic level were just superb and he was also known as Mr. Dependable because of his brilliant knocks which he played for Chennai Super Kings in the IPL. But the Tamil Nadu cricketer failed in making a big impact at the international level. In 2018, he took retirement from all forms of cricket and started doing commentary after retirement.
Do you know about more such cricketers? Add to the list.