Virat’s grand tribute to Dhoni on his 300th ODI

Image: BCCI
Image: BCCI

Debasis Sen, Colombo: Indian Captain Virat Kohli paid a fitting tribute to MS Dhoni today ahead of the fourth ODI at the R Premadasa Stadium. The former Indian captain, who was playing his 300th ODI, was felicitated by the Indian team members. Dhoni was presented a platinum bat by Virat.

Later the Indian captain paid a grand tribute to the former captain by saying, “90 percent of us started our careers under you. It is an honour to give this memento to him. You will always remain our captain.”

The man of the moment, Dhoni himself looked quite emotional as all the Indian players shook hands with him one after another.

Dhoni became the sixth Indian and 20th overall to feature in 300 one-day internationals. Only Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly,  Md. Azharuddin and Yuvraj Singh have achieved the milestone of playing 300 ODI’s for the country.

The Jharkhand wicketkeeper-batsman who played his first ODI back in 2004 has stepped down as India’s limited-overs captain after nearly 10 years at the helm.

As rightly pointed out by Virat, many of the present cricketers in the Indian team made their debuts under Dhoni and owe their careers to his leadership and guidance. Current skipper Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and a host of others were drafted into the side and persisted with by Dhoni, who is the most successful Indian captain ever.

This is how twitter reacted to celebrate Dhoni’ s 300th ODI’s.