When MS Dhoni became a social media trend, deciphering the ‘Thala For A Reason’ phenomena

Mahendra Singh Dhoni is a celebrated figure in India for all that he has done for the game of cricket. The former Indian skipper led the nation with pride and won it many titles during his near-decade reign.

Earlier this year, MS Dhoni led his IPL side Chennai Super Kings to their 5^th title. That win against the Gujarat Titans tied the record for the most IPL title wins alongside Mumbai Indians. While it was thought to be MS Dhoni’s final season the 42-year-old has promised a return to the ground during IPL 2024.

On Friday it was announced that the Indian Cricket Board is set to retire the number 7 jersey. After Sachin Tendulkar’s number 10 jersey, MS Dhoni’s number 7 is the second jersey number to be retired. The honour is once in a lifetime for a player who has given his all while playing for India.

Deciphering the ‘Thala for a Reason’ campaign 

Google India had recently come up with a special post for MS Dhoni and his cricket kit number 7. The post captured a question asked on the search engine “What is special about the number seven”. There were pictures of the former Indian skipper in the background while the question was shown as a highlight.

The response was “There are seven colours in the rainbow, seven days in a week, Seven wonders of the world, Seven major seas, and even the total number of continents is seven”. The post continued to elaborate on the importance of the number 7 in the numerical system. Google India then captioned the post by writing “The message is clear. Thala for a reason”

The former India skipper had revealed the reason behind his love for number seven, "A lot of people initially thought that 7 is a lucky number for me and all that. But I chose the number for a very simple reason. I was born on the 7th of July and that was the reason"

The former India skipper also said, "Rather than getting to all the different things as to what number is a good number and all, I thought I would use my date of birth as the number". Number 7 has been a huge relevance in the sporting world and MS Dhoni wearing the number has given it a special meaning. 

Chennai Super Kings joined the fun and wrote on Twitter “Chennai, Cricket, Whistle, and Yellove. IYKYK”. There were seven letters in all the messages posted by the current IPL winners. Even YouTube India got in on the act when they wrote “Thala-st-time we checked YouTube has 7 letters”

Dominos India, Reliance Jio, Amazon Prime India, Blinkit, and many more brands joined in on the “Thala for a reason’ campaign. The netizens too couldn’t stop marveling at the love shown towards the former India skipper by big-name companies.

While the brouhaha over the number 7 continues, MS Dhoni is slowly enjoying his time away from the game. Chennai Super Kings though will be busy with the IPL Mini Auction just around the corner. The five-time winners will want to pick the best players for their favourite number “7” to command a likely sixth IPL title.