Not just avid cricket fans even the ones who don’t follow the sport were a bit worried after seeing the speculations of MS Dhoni retiring from international cricket. After the third ODI between England and India, the video of MS Dhoni asking the ball from the umpire had gone viral all over the social media.
Many even started guessing that this could be MS Dhoni’s last match of his international career and even the media reports suggested the same. Before retiring from Tests, MS Dhoni uprooted the stumps in his last match against Australia’s Test draw in 2014.
However, Indian cricket team coach Ravi Shastri has put a full stop to rumours of MS Dhoni retiring on social media. “MS wanted to show the ball to Bharat Arun. He wanted to show him the wear and tear the ball had endured, to get a general idea of what the conditions were like,” Shastri clarified to Times of India.
The former Indian skipper asked for the ball from umpires Bruce Oxenford and Michael Gough as the teams made its way back towards the pavilion as India lost the third ODI by 8-wickets and with that, they lost the bilateral series 2-1 for the first time since 2016.
This is what Ravi Shastri has to say on all these rumours. “That’s rubbish. MS is not going anywhere. But right now, all this clamour is nonsense. He just wanted to show the ball to Arun to just have a look at it after close to 45 overs had been bowled,” Shastri confirmed.
Dhoni was criticized for playing slow knock, 59-ball 37 runs at Lord’s in the 2nd ODI which even frustrated many fans as they started booing him.
