Published: Jul 22, 2016, 04:16 PM (IST)
Edited: Jul 22, 2016, 04:16 PM (IST)
Cricket is the most popular sport in India hands down and its penetration in the country is pretty deep. However, the facilities and infrastructure required to excel in the game at the higher level are not present everywhere. It hurts aspiring cricketers from smaller towns when their career gets affected due to lack of facilities, and who understands it better than MS Dhoni? Also Read: Shocking! ‘Spartan’ MS Dhoni duped to the tune of INR 20 crores
India’s limited-overs skipper, who himself hails from the cricketing backwaters of Jharkhand in India, has faced a lot of hardships and made it big in the world of cricket. And now, after retiring from Test cricket, Dhoni has decided to embark on a new journey, wherein he will mentor and promote young, aspiring cricketers from India and Australia. For the same, he has teamed-up with former Australian pacer Craig McDermott.
Dhoni has recently been named as the face and brand ambassador of the McDermott International Cricket Academy (CMICA), a leading state of the art private cricket and educational sports academy in Australia. The academy offers a four-year bachelor’s degree in sports science and management with special emphasis on cricket. Indian skipper in shorter formats said that he was excited to be part of this initiative as it will give him the opportunity to meet and mentor young aspiring cricketers from both these countries. Also Read: MS Dhoni beats Virat Kohli off the field
“It is the perfect platform for me to give something back to the game,” Dhoni said, further adding, “More importantly, the academy will help sports-minded kids strike the right balance between education and sport. So far, intelligent youngsters who were also good in sport had to choose and settle only for one,” he added.
This tie-up has happened due to an understanding between CMICA and Rhiti Sports, the firm that manages Dhoni. The other reason behind it is ‘captain-cool’ becoming the global face of Secured Venture Capital, an Australian company headed by McDermott himself. This way, Dhoni has created another landmark by becoming the first cricketer in the world to be associated with a venture capital firm.
“I wasn’t very clear about the concept of venture capitalists initially,” revealed Dhoni. “I thought they just invest in business startups or new ideas and that’s about it. But now, after speaking to Craig at length I have understood that there is a lot of hard work that goes behind what they do. I am really fascinated,” he added. Also Read: A peek into MS Dhoni’s ‘untold’ love story
“I got to know about the risks involved in these kinds of ventures. You may do due diligence and extensive research but that does not mean you won’t fail. This is what I liked most about it because in life also we take risks without knowing the outcome. It is this challenge that got me interested and helped me decide to become part of this great new initiative,” Dhoni reasoned. The Indian skipper won’t be seen in action anytime sooner, as Team India has a Test-heavy season ahead. Isn’t this a good idea on Dhoni’s part, to invest his time in grooming the future of the game?
