1981 - Birth of the 2011 World Cup winning captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. When a call-up to the national side came, Dhoni wasted no time in asserting himself. He led India to victory in the World T20 in 2007. He took over the Test captaincy later in 2008 and oversaw memorable series wins over Australia, England, and New Zealand, and India went on to become No. 1 in the format. He is likely to be best remembered for leading India to the World Cup title in 2011. He captained India to a 4-0 whitewash of Australia at home and then unbeaten to the Champions Trophy title, both in 2013
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M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story, starring the late Sushant Singh Rajput as Dhoni in the Dhoni bio-pic, directed by Neeraj Pandey and released in 2016[/caption]
1984 - Mohommad Ashraful is born today. He may well have been the most talented Bangladeshi batsman of his era. At 17, he became the youngest player to score a Test century. He then scored an unbeaten 158 against India in a Test in 2004, and a historic match-winning hundred in an ODI against Australia in 2005
1985 - Boris Becker becomes the youngest player ever (17) to win the men’s singles tennis at Wimbledon. He is also the first German to win the title
1990 - Martina Navratilova beats Zina Garrison for record 9th Wimbledon title. By 1990, Navratilova had won the women’s singles championships of the French Open twice (1982, 1984), the Australian Open three times (1981, 1983, 1985), the U.S. Open four times (1983, 1984, 1986, 1987), and Wimbledon a record nine times (1978, 1979, 1982–87, 1990). In 1987, along with her singles championship, she won both the women’s doubles and the mixed doubles to become the first triple-crown champion at the U.S. Open since 1970
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On 7 July1990, Martina Navratilova beat Zina Garrison for record ninth Wimbledon title[/caption]
2005 - Vikram Solanki became the first Super-sub - a rule where a player could be replaced at any stage in the match, but unlike a traditional 12th man, the substitute could bat, bowl, field and keep wicket - in ODI cricket. He didn’t get to bat but that didn’t matter as England notched up their biggest win at the time (in terms of wickets) over Australia, at Headingley