The last dhoni-Pant conversation before Dhoni’s retirement: Mahendra Singh Dhoni has been one of the greatest captains India has ever seen in cricket. From being just another guy with long hair to his trademark helicopter shot, Dhoni bossed his presence in the field of cricket for years. As it stands, Dhoni is the only captain to win three ICC trophies. He won the inaugural season of the ICC T20 World Cup in 2007, the ODI World Cup in 2011 and a Champions Trophy in 2013. The wicketkeeper batter also held two test maces during his stint as the leader of team India.
Just like Dhoni’s debut, which ended with a run-out, Dhoni’s final game for India also saw a painful run-out that broke down millions of cricket fans across India. Although, MS announced his retirement officially on 15 August 2020, his last appearance for the Men in Blues dates back to 9th July 2019 against New Zealand on the ODI World Cup stage in England.
While not many knew the semi-final against New Zealand would be Dhoni’s farewell game in the blue colour, former India fielding coach R Sridhar has dropped a bombshell as he revealed the conversation between MS Dhoni and Rishabh Pant which hinted at the former’s retirement.
“I can now reveal that at the time of the interview to the BCCI, which I attended from Antigua, I was reasonably certain that for all practical purposes, MS had played his last match for the country. He hadn’t announced it, of course, but I will tell you why I knew. On the morning of the reserve day in our World Cup semifinal against New Zealand in Manchester, I was the first person at the breakfast hall. I was nursing my coffee when MS and Rishabh walked in, picked up their stuff and joined me at my table,” Sridhar wrote as he shared the story in his book, ‘Coaching Beyond- My days with the Indian cricket team’.
The talismanic glovesman didn’t join the rest of his teammates on a trip to London but wanted to enjoy his last bus drive with the team.
“New Zealand had only a couple of overs to bat out and we’d start our innings thereafter, so the match would end reasonably early. Rishabh told MS in Hindi, ‘Bhaiyya, some of the guys are planning to leave for London today itself privately. Would you be interested?’ MS replied, ‘No, Rishabh, I don’t want to miss my last bus drive with the team.’”
Sridhar further opened up that out of sheer respect for Dhoni, he didn’t utter a single word to anyone, not even his wife.
“I didn’t say a word to anyone about this conversation out of sheer respect for the man. He had taken me into confidence. I couldn’t shoot my mouth off. So, I didn’t utter a word not to Ravi, not to Arun, not even to my wife,” said Sridhar.
Team India had lost the semi-final against New Zealand by 18 runs. Dhoni scored a half-century in the game, before getting run-out, and kept the team in the game till the last moment.
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