Sabyasachi Bagchi, Kolkata: Ahead of the second ODI against Sri Lanka, India skipper Virat Kohli showed his full support for his former captain, MS Dhoni and in reply the best finisher in the world played a match winning knock to show the world that he is still the man for the team who can save the team when everybody thought that it is the end of the road.
Dhoni played a match winning knock of 45* off 68 deliveries and guided tail-ender Bhuvneshwar Kumar (53*) as the duo shared a match winning partnership of 100 runs for the eighth wicket to register a thrilling 3-wicket victory over the hosts via D/L method.
A lot of questions have been indirectly raised on MS Dhoni and his career in the past few days. Just ahead of the ODI series against Sri Lanka Indian cricket team’s selection committee chairman MSK Prasad told in a press-conference that Dhoni is no more the automatic choice in the ODI team and if he fails to perform they will think of other choices. Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s childhood coach, Keshav Banerjee looked very angry with Prasad’s comments.
“Every selector has their own way of team selection procedure but my question is that why he has made this public. As much as I know Dhoni, if he feels that it’s time to hang his boots, he will retire without saying a word. Few days back when he was talking to me, he said sir jab time ayega,chor denge. Kisike liye wait nahin karenge, ” said Keshav Banerjee while speaking to www.xtratime.in correspondent Sabyasachi Bagchi.
MSK Prasad had only played 6 Test matches and 17 ODIs in his international career. On the other hand former India skipper MS Dhoni has three major ICC Trophies under his belt. Regarded as the best finisher in the world, Dhoni single handedly helped the Men in Blue to win many matches in last ten years. Keshav thinks MSK Prasad doesn’t know the class of Dhoni and he is out of his mind.
“He doesn’t have the authority to say such things against MS Dhoni. Prasad should ask himself that in how many matches he was a part of Indian playing XI.”
Dhoni’s childhood friend, Mihir Diwakar is in Dubai right now. On being asked about MSK Prasad’s comment on Dhoni, Mihir said,” I am a friend of Mahi since the childhood days, when nobody knew him. As far as I know him he will take his final call on retirement at the right time. I just want to ask a question that if Dhoni wanted to play 100 Test matches for India, he could do that, there were nobody who could have stopped him. He could still be the captain of the limited overs side but he didn’t. Dhoni always listens to his instinct. At the end of the day he is a star performer and he always tries to give his best for the side. In the scond ODI he gave Bhuvneshwar Kumar the chances to play all the shots freely, on the other hand he just played the mentor’s role.”
Mehir further said that MSK had told against Dhoni in the press-conference as he wanted to have the limelight of the media.” Prasad might have thought that by saying this he could be in news. On the other hand Dhoni hadn’t said a word against Dhoni, that is the basic difference between a common man and Dhoni,” said Prasad.
He further added,“In the post match press-conference of Bhuvneshwar Kumar told that if Dhoni wanted to score a half century in the second ODI, he could have done it with an ease but instead of doing that he gave Bhuvneshwar Kumar to complete his maiden fifty.”