India women’s team skipper Mithali Raj on Wednesday (April 4) congratulated the legendary India cricketer MS Dhoni after the latter was conferred with the prestigious Padma Bhushan award – the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, behind Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan.

On Monday (April 2), the 2011 World Cup winning Indian captain was bestowed with the Padma Bhushan by the honourable President of India Shri Ram Nath Kovind in the national capital. The 36-year-old attended the ceremony organized at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in his Army uniform.

Taking to micro-blogging site Twitter, Mithali wrote that Dhoni is an absolute worthy recipient for this honour and the whole of India should be proud of his achievement.

“Congratulations @msdhoni - truly well deserved. A proud moment not just for the sports fraternity, one for every Indian. Heartwarming” Mithali tweeted.

With this highly esteemed award, Dhoni joined the elite club comprising of Sachin Tendulkar, Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Rahul Dravid, Chandu Borde, Prof DB Deodhar, Col CK Nayudu, Raja Bhalindra Singh, Vijaya Anand and Lala Amarnath. All the mentioned cricketers had been the recipient of this award in the past.

Dhoni was nominated for this award by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in September 2017. It was a unanimous decision by the board. It's hardly surprising considering Dhoni’s achievement as a cricketer. The Jharkhand man is the only Indian captain to have won two world titles (2011 ODI World Cup and 2007 World T20) besides lifting the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy.

As far as Dhoni’s cricket career is concerned – he has scored 9967 runs in 318 ODIs. He has also played 90 Test matches, notching up 4876 runs. Dhoni has amassed 16 international hundreds (six in Tests and 10 in ODIs) while batting at the lower middle order in all form of cricket.