Tribal marathon runners with MS Dhoni in the city yesterday

Tribal runners from Shirpur taluka of Dhule district in Maharashtra received the best compliment of their lives from India cricket icon MS Dhoni, who was in the city, for a commercial shoot at Mehboob Studio at Bandra.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni spent 15 minutes with the athletes and assured them support. He also gifted them an autograph bat. "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 yesterday.

Along with Narayan, Somnath Pawara, Jagan Pawara, Chetna Patel and Ashwini Chaudhary, also met India's star wicketkeeper-batsman. 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."

Later in the evening, the athletes had the opportunity to accompany 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.

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MS Dhoni spends time, gifts bat for tribal runners in Maharashtra

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