When people talk about South Africa, it’s all about lions and elephants. But when we talk about India, we talk about tigers. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
I don’t study cricket too much. Whatever I have learned or experienced is through cricket I’ve played on the field, and whatever little I have watched. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
I believe in giving more than 100% on the field, and I don’t really worry about the result if there’s great commitment on the field. That’s victory for me. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
If you have forest, if you have green forest, the water table goes up. What happens with deforestation is the water level goes down and we all know how much importance drinking water has. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Getting up quite late in the morning, going and trying to clean my bikes – I have quite a few of them in Ranchi – spending some time with my family, my parents and friends. Going out for rides with my friends and having lunch or dinner at a roadside hotel – that’s my favourite time-pass. These are the sort of things that really excite me. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
I have formed the Mahendra Singh Dhoni Charitable Trust which organises cricket tournaments in Jharkhand to identify promising cricketers so that we can help groom them, either in India or abroad. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Self-confidence has always been one of my good qualities. I am always very confident. It is in my nature to be confident, to be aggressive. And it applies in my batting as well as wicketkeeping. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
I have three dogs at home. Even after losing a series or winning a series, they treat me the same way. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
You may earn whatever money you earn as a cricketer, but you want to play for your country. At the end of the day, you want to do something special. There are plenty of people who earn 50 crores or 100 crores as businessmen or big professionals or who are really doing well in business. But what gives pleasure to your mom and dad is the fame. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
For me, it’s important to build good partnerships rather than score centuries. Once, you have those partnerships, you will also get centuries. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
If you play cricket for India, money is bound to come, and with IPL in and match money of the Ranjhi trophy, I think money is there. There’s no good reason why you should not work hard, because at the end of the day, you want to play for your country. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
One of my theories is to be captain on the field and off the field, you need to totally enjoy each other’s company. I don’t like discussing cricket off the field. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Maybe because I bat aggressively and go for big hits at times, people tend to remember my batting. But I have always done well as a stumper, too. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
After one Olympics, if we invest in sports and say we will get a gold medal in the next Olympic, it doesn’t work like that in sports. How it works is that you provide the infrastructure, provide education about nutrition and health. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
It’s important to learn and not repeat the same mistakes. What’s done is done. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Gut feeling is all about the experiences that you have had in your life. It is about being in difficult scenarios, knowing what worked, what did not work, and then taking a decision. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
The era of playing aggressive cricket and to have the mid-on up is gone. You now try to read the mindset of a batsman. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Since 2005, I have not spent much time with my family. In fact I have spent more time at the Taj Landsend in Mumbai. It was my 100th visit recently, which means I have spent more than 400 days in that hotel, and that is a lot more than I have spent with my family. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
I am in the hands of Deori Maa. Every time I come to Ranchi, I visit her temple. I still remember my first visit. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
If you are good at studies, and you want to play cricket, you may work harder than any other person, but you may not achieve it. So it’s something you have to balance in life and be practical where you are good and then channelise your efforts in the right direction to be successful in life. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
If you don’t really have a dream, you can’t really push yourself; you don’t really know what the target is. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
I love being in the present. When I was playing for my school, the only thing I wanted to do was get selected for the under-16 or the under-19 district teams. When I was selected for the district, I would think about the next level, which was getting selected for the state side. I’m a person who lives very in the moment. – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
