It was 15 August in 2020 when World-Cup winning captain MS Dhoni announced his retirement from international cricket. Dhoni, who was captain of the teams that won the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in 2007, the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup in 2011 and the ICC Champions Trophy in 2013, announced his retirement from international cricket.Taking to Instagram, the wicketkeeper-batter had shared a video and captioned the post, “Thanks a lot for ur love and support throughout. From 1929 hrs consider me as Retired.”
The video had the iconic song ‘Mai Pal Do Pal Ka Shayar Hu’ from Amitabh Bachchan’s ‘Kabhie Kabhie’ playing in the background. Dhoni shared his incredible journey as India team member including his run out in the last game against New Zealand in the 2019 World Cup semifinal. He has been an accomplished all-rounder with smart work behind the stumps and great finishing abilities in limited-overs cricket. He played 350 ODIs with his highest score being 183 against Sri Lanka. He also remains the only captain to win all major ICC trophies (50-over World Cup, T20 World Cup, and Champions Trophy). Referred to as ‘Captain Cool’, Dhoni is known for his calmness and exquisite captaincy on the field. His agility behind the stumps gave India many breakthroughs. His knack and cricketing intelligence has made him famous for review calls and many have jokingly remarked to change the ‘Decision-Review System’s’ name to ‘Dhoni-Review System’. In December 2014, he announced his retirement from Tests and gave a chance to young players like Wriddhiman Saha. Dhoni called time on his Test career after playing 90 Tests and scoring 4,876 runs at an average of 38.09. Under Dhoni’s leadership, India also managed to attain the number-one ranking in Test cricket. The 42-year-old popular player has cricket left in him and led Chennai Super Kings to their fifth IPL trophy in 2023.