Former India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni left everyone suprised when he had announced his retirement from Test cricket in 2024 in the middle of the Border-Gavaskar trophy in Australia. Dhoni announced his retirement after a drawn Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Virat Kohli was named his successor in the middle of the series.
It may be recalled that Ravi Shastri was India’s team manager at that time and according to Shastri Dhoni came to meet him after the draw and told him that he wanted to address the players in the dressing room.
“I knew that the moment MS Dhoni finishes, Virat Kohli is the guy to lead the side. He (MS Dhoni) knew who was the next leader in line,” Shastri told Star Sports. “He was waiting for an opportune time to make the announcement. He knew how much his body could take and he wanted to prolong his white-ball career. When your body tells you it’s enough, it’s enough, there are no second thoughts about that,” Shastri said.
“Well, it came as a surprise. He came to me and said ‘I want to say something to the boys’. I said ‘sure’. I thought he was going to say something about the draw. He comes out. I just saw the faces around the dressing room. Most of the boys were in a state of shock when MS made the announcement. But that’s MS for you,” he added.
Meanwhile, commenting on Kohli’s removal as Team India ODI captain Shastri said that it can come as a blessing in disguise for Kohli who can focus more on his batting now.
“I think it’s the right way to go (2 captains for white-ball and red-ball cricket). This could be a blessing in disguise for Virat and for Rohit. I don’t think in this era with bubble life one guy can handle all three (captaincy in all three formats). It’s not easy at all,” Shastri said.
“We are both pretty aggressive, we played to win, we realised very quickly that to win we need 20 wickets, deciding to play aggressive and fearless cricket. It meant at times that you would lose games but once you got one across the line it’s infectious,” he added.
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