ms dhoni the untold story

Special mention

For Dhoni, that game was the fulfilment of a cherished dream, for Sachin Tendulkar was to play in it. "There used to be a big Tendulkar poster above his head in the room where he used to sleep," Gautam Upadhyaya, another of Dhoni's childhood friends, said. Dhoni was designated the twelfth man for the game, and Tendulkar, on his way to a match-winning 199, asked Dhoni for water during a drinks break. That was as close as Dhoni got to his idol on the first go-round.

But these wonders were a decade in the future. In 2001, fresh off his turn on the drinks cart, Dhoni had to turn his attention to practical matters. That season, he moved to Kharagpur in West Bengal, where Animesh Kumar Ganguly, then a divisional manager of the South Eastern Railways was trying to build a strong team for the department. Ganguly asked Subroto Banerjee, the coach of the South Eastern Railways team, who told him about an up-and-coming keeper-batsman in the Bihar side. Ganguly asked Satya Prakash, one of his players, to call for Dhoni. When the young man arrived at Ganguly's bungalow, which had its own cricket pitch, Ganguly bowled a spell at him, and was happy with what he saw. He gave Dhoni a job as a train ticket examiner, and a spot on his cricket squad.

In the 2002-03 season, he played for the divisional railways team, as well as for East Zone, Bihar, and — for fun — Durga Sporting, a tennis-ball cricket club where he became popular for the long sixes he hoisted in night-time tournaments. His day job suffered; he was issued a show-cause notice for being irregular in showing up for duty. He was a bit casual at work and the only thing he waited for was for the clock to strike two pm, so that he could be at the ground. When he wasn't watching cricket or going on bike rides, he worked on his body at the South Eastern Railways stadium. He resigned from the railways in 2003.