Should or shouldn’t Dhoni retire from cricket

Mahinder Singh Dhoni, or Mahi, as we all fondly know him is going to attain a ripe age of 38 on july 7^th, this year. And that is quite an age for a sports person to be fit enough to perform in a national tem and at the international level in any game. 

So that’s a ripe age for a cricketer, though he appears fit as ever, his hand – eye coordination is in perfect form, and the blades of his famous helicopter shot are rotating fine. In the warm-up game against Bangladesh, he hit a swashbuckling 113 runs off just 78 deliveries. But is he going to hang his shoes after the World Cup ? after all media is continuously behind this million dollar question for the last two years.

Sachin Tendulkar, Kapil Dev and M.S.Dhoni have probably been the three most popular players in Indian cricket. And at the risk of the enraging theb readers, it is to be said that Sachin and Kapil, both of them should have rrlier than they retired. Kapil played for I think about a couple of years more than he should have actually done , and that was possibly try to beat the world record of Sir Richard Hadlee, which was 431 test wickets. Any how today Stuart Broad has more wickets than Kapil; from the lesser matches that he played. Sachin had probably set his eyes on the 100^thinternational century and the v200th in the test matches. His 100^thton came only after 370 days and about 33 innings of the extended wait and to tell you the fact is that it was his second slowest century in his one-day career, and this became the key reason for India to lose that match against Bangladesh, for only the third time ever and were stopped midway to reach the Asia Cup final. Sachin was given his 200^thtest and farewell in a hurriedly organized series with the West Indies.

Dhoni’s career has been marked by his talent as much by his shrewdness. He has always been awarte of when to walk away. Under the able captaincy of Dhoni india was the top most team for 18 months at a stretch in the tyest matches beginning December 2009. But after that due to some reasons the team position deteriorated down south. In the middle of series in Australia , somewhere in December 2014, he annoumnced his immediate retirement from tests, astonishing everyone, even those who had been criticizing his captaincy for a very long time. And were talking to strupip him off his captaincy immediately. Mr.Cool walked off leaving his critics stranded in the middle of nowhere.

He announced the giving up of captaincy in the limited overs in January 2017. Without the load of captaincy, Dhoni could now concentrate on his game and play the World Cup. This was alkso done so that Virat Kohli could get ample experience captaining the one-day team leading upto the cup. India’s interests and Dhoni’s goals went side by side.

And this worked wonders. Being a wicketkeeper-batsman, and with his huge experience and superb tactical sense, possibly Dhoni is the best asset that a team could ask for in this WC. On 16^thjune , the morning after the India-Pakistan match, I received a whatsapp collage message. Dhoni instructs Rohit Sharma to stand at mid- wicket and Sharma complies. Her then asks Kuldeep Yadav to bowl a googly. Yadav complies the same. Kohli says “ But Mahi bhai, I am the captain” Dhoni replies “ Iknow, now go to mid-off” I forwarded it to my college mates group. One of my hostel mates messaged me that hev witnessed this on 9^thJune during the India-Australia match at oval. The control of the game was taken over by Dhoni when India let go quite a number of 4s and there was a big display on the big screen at the end of 39 overs. Australia was 5 runs more than india and Dhoni took over.

To tell you more about that match, when the 37^thover ended, Australioa chasing india’s total of 352, was looking at an average of 11 runs an over. But Australia scored a 28 runs off the next two overs. Then they saw Dhoni, quite nicely talk over the controls. Before every ball was bowled he was giving instructions and changing field positions and having a word with the bowlers. During the 40^thover Australia lost two wickets, when Bhuvneshwar Kumar struck Steve Smith on the pads and appealed, the umpire was unmoved, then Kohli took Dhoni’s advise and asked for a review, and Smith was adjudged out. Two balls later Stoinis was clean bowled.

In the 45^thover, Dhoni moved Kohli to the mid-wicket. And almost immediately Nathan misjudged and mishit a catch direct to Kohli. All of those at the ground could see who was in control and in charge. Australia continued to be under pressure as their scoring rate was badly slowed down by then. And that led to india’s win. I think it is a natural gift to Mr.cool to take charge whenever the things seem to move out of control. I think that Dhoni just steps up when he thinks it is the right moment to, and Kohli just steps down in a sensible and mature manner as that is the smartest thing to do at that moment.

Concluding I would like to state that as per me, this is not the right time for Dhoni to hang up his boots and retire. There is still a lots and lots of cricket left in him mentally and physically as he has proven from time to time. He is a guiding spirit to the new budding cricketers of India and he still has miles to go before he calls it a day and this has been proven by him time and again. Of course cricket has witnessed many great cricketers of yore but there is hardly anyone who comes near to Dhoni.