Debasis Sen, London: It might be a normal incident. At the end of the third ODI against England, former India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni kept the match ball from the umpire. In this modern day the video got ‘viral’ instantly. And with this video the new speculations started that the Jharkhand batsman is thinking about a full-time retirement. A few started saying that after the Asia Cup Dhoni might announce his retirement. The reason behind this decision is his poor form in the recently concluded limited overs tour in England.
For more than a decade he has been saving the team from danger. When everybody thought this is the end, Dhoni became the savior of the team and for that reason he is also called ‘The Best Finisher’. But recently he is not in good touch for quite sometime and for that the speculations of his retirement has grown more. In the recently concluded ODI series against England his slow batting was almost criticised by everyone.
In the second ODI at Lord’s while chasing a total of 322 runs, the visitors got out on 236 and England won the game by 86 runs. Though Dhoni reached record 10,000 runs and 300 catches in ODIs in this game but he faced a lot of criticism from the crowd. He scored only 37 runs from 59 deliveries with a strike rate of 62.71. Not only them but also legendary Sunil Gavaskar too criticised him for his slow batting. Though despite all this criticisms he didn’t change his batting style in the final ODI as well. There he scored 42 runs from 66 deliveries with a strike rate of 63.64 which doesn’t go with Dhoni’s reputation. With this his need in the Indian cricket team’s lower order is under serious question.
From the start of the ODI series Dhoni is not looking that well. Between the practice sessions he was seen having a serious discussion with head coach Ravi Shastri as well. Ahead of the last game at Leeds BCCI selection committee chief M.S.K Prasad had a serious discussion with Shastri during the practice and Dhoni was seen trying to understand what they were talking about.
Not only that a few symptoms are also indicating that he is thinking about his retirement as well. 1) In every game he used to give valuable suggestions to the bowlers. In the slog overs when Kohli do his fielding in the outer ring, Dhoni takes charge of everything from behind the stumps. But in the last ‘do or die’ game against England surprisingly his proactive activities were missing. 2) After the grand success of MS Dhoni The Untold Story, there are speculations that ‘Dhoni 2’ would hit the theaters in a few years time. In that movie Dhoni’s life after 2011 will be seen to his fans and that might be the reason as well for his possible retirement as that will help the biopic to get it’s full cycle. 3) The third and the most important reason is at the end of the third ODI at Leeds he collected the match ball from the umpire. The speculations of his retirement started after that as mostly a cricketer keep a ‘match ball’ or ‘match wicket’ to remember any special moment. But unfortunately the last game was definitely not memorable for Team India or MS Dhoni.
Though it is still unclear why Dhoni did that last night, but most of the cricket pundits believe that Dhoni will retire from the ‘Gentleman’s game’ after the 2019 World Cup.