MS Dhoni, widely regarded as one of the best cricketers the world has ever seen, announced on August 15, 2020 that he will no longer participate in international competition, calling an end to his storied career.
However, Dhoni has already decided to retire from international cricket before the 2019 ODI World Cup, according to R Sridhar, who served as the fielding coach for India previously. Sridhar made this revelation recently.
In his book titled “Coaching Beyond: My Days with the Indian Cricket Team,” Sridhar detailed a chat that Dhoni had with Rishabh Pant that made Dhoni realise that the seasoned wicket-keeper batter has decided to hang up his boots and retire from cricket.
Sridhar revealed a story that had never been told before when he said that on the morning of the reserve day of the semi-final between India and New Zealand, the wicket-keeper batter told Pant that he “doesn’t want to miss his last bus.” Sridhar said that this conversation took place on the reserve day of the match.
“I can now say that at the time of the interview with the BCCI, which I attended from Antigua, I was quite satisfied that for all intents and purposes, MS had played his last match for the country. This was the first time I’ve been able to reveal this information publicly.
Of course, he hadn’t made the announcement, but I’ll explain how I found out about it anyhow. I was the first person to arrive at the breakfast hall in Manchester on the morning of the reserve day for our World Cup semifinal match against New Zealand. The match was held in Manchester.
When MS and Rishabh strolled in, I was halfway through my cup of coffee when they gathered up their belongings and joined me at my table.”
“Because New Zealand’s innings would only take a handful of overs to complete, and ours would begin immediately after, the game was going to be over quite quickly.
In Hindi, Rishabh communicated with MS as follows: “Bhaiyya, some of the guys are preparing to leave for London today itself on their own.”
Do you think you could be interested?’ The answer that MS gave was, “No, Rishabh, I don’t want to miss my last bus drive with the team.” “According to an excerpt from the book that was published in the Indian Express newspaper.
MS Dhoni played in what would turn out to be his final match for India, as their team was eliminated from the competition following a loss to New Zealand in the semi-final.
The moment that Dhoni was run out by Martin Guptill was referred to by the commentators as the “game-changing” moment. Prior to that, Dhoni had kept the team in the hunt.