The legendary former Indian skipper MS Dhoni is celebrating his 42^nd birthday today and the social media is flooded with birthday wishes from all over the world. MSD is the only skipper to win all the three ICC trophies -2007 T20 World Cup, 2011 ODI World Cup and 2013 Champions Trophy and he is also the most successful IPL captain on a joint basis as his team CSK has won IPL five times under his leadership.

MS Dhoni is known for his smart captaincy and he is famous among his fans as a man who can completely change the situation of a match from behind the wickets. Here are 4 decisions of MS Dhoni which turned out to be masterstrokes:

1. Giving last over to Joginder Sharma in 2007 T20 World Cup final:

In the 2007 T20 WC final, MS Dhoni decided to give the last over to Joginder Sharma despite Harbhajan Singh being left with one over and this was considered as a big decision because trusting a new player needs guts in such a critical situation in an important match.

2. 2013 Champions trophy – gave ball to Ishant Sharma:

England needed only 130 runs to win but Dhoni used Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja to choke them and when they needed 28 of 18 balls, he brought Ishant Sharma in attack despite the fact that he gave 11 runs in 16^th over. However, there was a plan behind this and Ishant not only dismissed Eoin Morgan but Ravi Bopara as well.

3. Promoting him up the order in 2011 World Cup final:

MS Dhoni played a beautiful knock of 91 runs in the 2011 World Cup final and the decision of promoting himself up the order proved to be a correct one.

4. 2014 tour to England, Bouncers from Ishant Sharma at Lord’s:

Though India lost the first test match but they bounced back at Lord’s. In the second test match, England needed only 140 to win with 6 wickets in hand but MSD made Ishant Sharma bowl bouncers and India won the match by 95 runs. Ishant Sharma ended the match with career’s best figures of 7/74.

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