Mahendra Singh Dhoni, sometimes abbreviated as MS Dhoni  pronunciation (born 7 July 1981 in Ranchi, Bihar) is an Indian cricketer and the current captain of the Indian team. Initially recognized as an extravagantly flamboyant and destructive batsman, Dhoni has come to be regarded as one of the coolest heads to captain the Indian ODI side. Under his captaincy, India won the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, CB Series of 2007-08 and the Border-Gavaskar trophy 2008 in which they beat Australia 2-0. He also lead the team to their first ever bilateral ODI series wins in Sri Lanka and New Zealand. Dhoni has also been the recipient of many awards including the ICC ODI Player of the Year award in 2008 (the first Indian player to achieve this feat), the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award and the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian honour in 2009. Currently, Dhoni is the highest ranked ODI batsmen on the ICC Rankings List. Also Dhoni named as Skipper of Wisden's first-ever Drea

Suresh Kumar Raina  pronunciation (help·info) (born 27 November 1986, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India) is an Indian cricketer from the state of Uttar Pradesh. Raina has been a member of the Indian cricket team for ODIs since July 2005, and was included in the Test squad in early 2006, but has yet to make his Test debut. Domestically he plays for Uttar Pradesh in the Ranji Trophy and Central Zone in the Duleep Trophy. He is primarily a left-hand batsman, who is known for his ability to hit the stumps from the infield. He is also a very occasional off-spinner.

Raina had a difficult start to his international career, being dismissed for a golden duck by a doosra from spinner Muttiah Muralitharan.[4] After scoring 37 runs in the tournament at an average of 12.33, and with the return of Ganguly from suspension, Raina was omitted from the starting XI for the tour of Zimbabwe. With Ganguly being sacked after a row with Indian coach Greg C

Michael Edward Killeen Hussey (born 27 May 1975, Morley, Western Australia) is an Australian cricketer. A left-handed specialist batsman. Hussey is also widely known by his nickname Mr Cricket.

Hussey was a relative latecomer to both the one-day international and Test Australian teams, debuting at 28 and 30 years of age in the respective formats, with 15,313 first-class runs before making his test debut. However, he has had a highly successful international career, being the top-ranked ODI batsman in the world in 2006 . He plays first-class cricket as vice-captain of the Western Warriors in Australia and has played for three counties in England.

Andrew Flintoff, MBE, (born 6 December 1977 in Preston, Lancashire) is a cricketer who plays for Lancashire and England. A tall (6' 4") fast bowler, batsman, slip fielder, and according to the ICC rankings, was consistently rated amongst the top international allrounders in both ODI and Test cricket. His nickname "Freddie" or "Fred" comes from the similarity between his surname and that of Fred Flintstone. Since his debut in 1998, Flintoff has become an integral player, and has both captained and vice-captained the team. He has been plagued with ankle injuries due to his bowling action, and in late 2007 a fourth operation took him out of cricket until summer 2008.

Jacob David Philip Oram (born 28 July 1978, Palmerston North, Manawatu, New Zealand) is a New Zealand cricketer. He is a left-handed batsman and a right-arm fast-medium bowler. His abilities with both bat and ball has made him a regular fixture in the current New Zealand Test and one-day sides. He usually bats around 6 or 7 for New Zealand. Oram's bowling has been more successful in the shorter format: he has reached as high as 5 in the ICC ODI Player Rankings as a bowler. Standing at 1.98m (6ft 6 in), he was a schoolboy representative as a soccer goalkeeper. He has also played for Manawatu in the Hawke Cup.

He plays for the Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League. He played the first three league matches in the Indian Premier League before leaving for national duty. He made his mark by playing a major role with both bat and ball in Chennai's first three victories.

Muttiah Muralitharan (born 17 April 1972 in Kandy, Sri Lanka), often referred to as Murali, is a Sri Lankan cricketer who was rated the greatest Test match bowler ever by Wisden Cricketers' Almanack in 2002.

Muralitharan is the highest wicket-taker in both Test cricket and in One Day Internationals (ODIs). He took the wicket of Gautham Gambhir on 5 February 2009 in Colombo, to surpass Wasim Akram's ODI record of 502 wickets.Muralitharan became the highest wicket-taker in Test cricket when overtook the previous record-holder Shane Warne on 3 December 2007 in longer version of the game.Muralitharan had previously held the record when he surpassed Courtney Walsh's 519 wickets in 2004. But he suffered a shoulder injury later that year and was then overtaken by Warne.

Hayden debuted for the Australian team in the 1994 March 4-8 Test Match against South Africa in Johannesburg, scoring 15 and 5.[4] His next Test selection was in the 1996/7 season, with three each against the West Indies and South Africa. He made his debut century (125 against WI in Adelaide) aided by multiple dropped catches by the West Indies side. His average of 21.7 was not enough to keep his position in the Australian side, and in particular openers Mark Taylor and Matthew Elliott. He was dropped from the team, and it appeared his international career was over, compared occasionally to that of Graeme Hick, a fine domestic performer with not quite enough to make it at the highest level.

Hayden also played in the Australian side that won the 2003 One Day International Cricket World Cup. He was dropped from the ODI squad because of poor form after The Ashes in 2005, though he could not be kept away from the ODI squad for long. He returned to the Australian squad in the 200

Johannes Albertus Morkel (born 10 June 1981 in Vereeniging, Transvaal), usually referred to as just Albie Morkel, is a South African cricketer. He is an all-rounder who bowls right-arm-fast-medium and bats left-handed. He is famous for his six hitting abilities in Twenty20 cricket. Albie has a brother, Morne Morkel, who also plays international cricket for South Africa while his father played provincial cricket in South Africa.

His statistics on his international debut tour to New Zealand were not very impressive, as he got two wickets at the cost of 48 runs apiece, but he did get five wickets quite cheaply on Zimbabwe's tour of South Africa in the summer of runs an over. Nevertheless, Morkel was picked for the Africa squad to play Asia in the 2005 Afro-Asian Cup, but withdrew due to injury. He appeared however for Africa the following series, in 2007, and made history in the second game when he opened the bowling with his brother Morne, the first time two brothers have done

Parthiv Ajay Patel  pronunciation (born 9 March 1985 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat) is an Indian cricketer, wicketkeeper-batsman, and former member of the Indian national cricket team. He is a left-handed batsman and is of a very short stature at 160 cm.

Patel started playing cricket for his school in 1996, moulding his style of Ian Healy and Adam Gilchrist, he was selected for Gujarat U-14s in 1998 .[1] Patel first caught the eyes of cricket journalists[2] in December 2000 when playing for Gujarat U-16s in the West Zone league against Maharashtra, when as a wicket-keeper and an opening batsman he scored centuries in both innings of the match, with 101 (of 196) and 201 not out (of 297) after being forced to follow on to save the match.[3] He was subsequently named as the captain of West Zone U-19s at the age of 15, leading them in a match against the England U-19s.[4] He was subsequently selected to the Indian U-19s, being coached by Roger Binny whilst attending Vidya Nagar Hig

Shabab Jakati (born 27 November 1980 in Vasco da Gama, Goa) is an Indian first class cricketer. He is a left handed batsman and a slow left arm orthodox bowler. He represents Goa in first class cricket and Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League. He has also represented the Goa cricket team at Under-16 and Under-22 level.

Ravichandran Ashwin (born September 17th 1986) is an Indian first class cricketer, who plays for Tamil Nadu cricket team. He is a right handed batsman and right arm off-break bowler.Ashwin is an all-rounder for Tamil Nadu and has taken 6/64 against Vidarbha in first-class cricket. He made his debut against Andhra Pradesh in Twenty20 cricket. He is studying in SSN. He plays first-class cricket for Tamil Nadu and has played in the Duleep Trophy 2008 for South Zone.