Dhoni felicitated for World Cup win

Mahendra Singh Dhoni was on Sunday felicitated in his home state Ranchi for the tremendous feat of leading India to World Cup win after 28 years.
"Though I wished to come to Ranchi after winning the cup, the IPL fixture didn't allow me. But now, I am happy to be back in my home town," Dhoni said after being felicitated by Jharkhand deputy Chief Minister Sudesh Kumar Mahto late on Saturday night.

Dhoni will visit the Mahashakti temple at nearby Deori for offering prayers to his deity on Sunday and will then leave for Mumbai to shoot a commercial.

"After winning the World Cup and wishing a successful stint of the Indian team in the West Indies tour, the captain will visit Deori and then leave for Mumbai," confirmed a family member of 'Mahi'.

Dhoni was accompanied by wife Sakshi Singh Rawat at the felicitation.

Memento and shawl were presented to 'captain cool' in the low-key affair with some ministers and politicians also in attendance.

World Cup win rules BCCI awards night

TweetThe 2009-10 BCCI awards function on Tuesday evening in Mumbai was well attended by present and former luminaries of Indian cricket.
By Abhideep Das in Mumbai

In a year when Team India has given joy to Indians all over the world by winning the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, it is only fair that the entire focus will always be on those 15 members wherever they go.

Tuesday evening was no different as MS Dhoni and his warriors took center-stage during the BCCI awards function for the year 2009-10 held at the beautiful lawn of Taj Land’s End, Bandra.

The whole evening was dominated with the sweet scent of victory from that incredible night of April 2 at the Wankhede Stadium. As promised by the Board then, each and every member of Team India was handed out a cheque of Rs two crores each, while the entire support-staff got a handsome reward of Rs 50 lakhs each.

The function was made even more special with the presence of a large chunk of team members from the 1983 World Cup-winning-squad. Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Balwinder Singh Sandhu and Yashpal Sharma were seen rekindling some of the old memories.

With the ICL now being defunct, individuals like Kapil and Sandhu have been welcomed back into the BCCI fold with open arms. The current crop of fast bowlers will be the happiest with this development since the likes of Ishant Sharma and Munaf Patel were all ears when Kapil went upto them to share a trick or two.
“The most important thing is to go ahead and enjoy the game. Give it your best shot but it is important that you enjoy your art,” the legendary Dev exhorted to the young pacers during a dinner-table conversation.

For the record, former all-rounder Salim Durani was handed over the lifetime achievement award while Sachin Tendulkar was named Indian cricketer of the year for 2009-10.

The glorious evening ended with an audio-visual presentation of the memorable moments of Team India’s 2011 World Cup campaign. The interesting bit about this presentation was that each game was accompanied with a matching theme song.

While it was ‘De Ghuma Ke’ for the quarter-final win over Australia, nothing but ‘Chak De India’ resonated the air as everyone recollected those tense moments from that nerve-wracking triumph over Pakistan in the semi-final.
‘Jai Ho’ it was when scenes from that magical night of April 2 was being played on the big-screen. No prizes for guessing that the warmest and loudest applause from the assembled players, Board functionaries and media went out for this particular sequence.

Guess no one can ever have enough of that amazing triumph!

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Powered by Disqus