MS Dhoni is known for doing his bit for the society and sportspersons from other fields as well. Some time back he was seen attending a women’s hockey match in Ranchi and now he fulfilled wishes of some tribal runners from Shirpur taluka of Dhule district in Maharashtra.

MS Dhoni, who was in the city, for a commercial shoot at Mehboob Studio at Bandra, spent 15 minutes with the runners, taking pictures and assured them of support from his side. He also gifted them an autographed bat as a memento of their meeting.

"We never expected to meet such a big cricket star. He asked us about our difficulties and enquired about our training. When we told him that these days, due to our exams, we train from evening till midnight, he was really impressed and encouraged us to work hard to achieve our goal," Narayan Pawara, 19, who won the Singapore U-19 10-km run last December, told mid-day.

Along with Narayan, Somnath Pawara, Jagan Pawara, Chetna Patel and Ashwini Chaudhary met the former India captain, who will lead the Chennai Super Kings in the upcoming IPL 2018.

Talking about his meeting with MSD, Somnath said: "I was speechless after seeing him, but I somehow managed to tell him how I completed the Singapore 42km marathon by mistake instead of running 21km. I wore the same shoes gifted to me by Dhoni for that event. The bat he gave us too will always remain special."

All the athletes had the unique opportunity of accompanying the SoBo SuperSonics captain Abhishek Nayar and Shivaji Park Lions skipper Bravish Shetty for the toss in Qualifier 2 of the T20 Mumbai League at the Wankhede Stadium.

(With inputs from Mid-Day.com)