From the giant 100-feet cut-out in Andhra Pradesh to a flood of congratulatory messages on social media, MS Dhoni's birthday is reminiscent of a national event in India as almost the entire country queued up on Sunday to wish 'Mahi' a happy birthday.
The celebrations to ring in the 43rd birthday of one of India's most iconic cricketers started as early as midnight, with MSD's wife, Sakshi, organising a small party, which was also attended by Bollywood super star Salman Khan besides Dhoni and Sakshi's close friends.
Since early morning on July 7, the internet has gone berserk with the count of posts on social media platforms to wish Dhoni refusing to drop.
Cricketers, Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises, broadcasters, administrators and also the politicians joined the queue to wish the T20 and ODI World Cup-winning captain Dhoni, who also led Chennai Super Kings to five IPL titles.
Here's how the birthday wishes for Dhoni flowed in:
Dhoni, one of India's most prolific wicketkeeper-batsmen and legendary captains, featured in 90 Test matches before retiring from the format in 2014. He amassed 4876 runs in the longest format at an average of 38.09, which included 7 hundreds and 33 fifties, with a highest of 224.
Dhoni continued to represent India in limited-overs cricket before announcing his retirement from international cricket on 15th August 2020, having played 350 ODIs and 98 T20Is. In the 50-over format, he accumulated 10,773 runs at an impressive average of 50.58, scoring 73 half-centuries and 10 centuries.
In the shortest format of the game, Dhoni scored 1617 runs at an average of 37.6, including two fifties.
He holds the unique distinction of being the only Indian captain to have won all the major ICC trophies -- the Test mace, Champions Trophy (2013), ODI World Cup (2011) and T20 World Cup (2007).
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