India’s captain cool MS Dhoni says goodbye

THE MAN FROM RANCHI WHO LED INDIA TO TWO WORLD TITLES ANNOUNCES HIS RETIREMENT IN CHARACTERISTICALLY NONCHALANT MANNER

NEW DELHI: Nearly 400 days since he played his last match for India, Mahendra Singh Dhoni has retired from international cricket, putting to an end both a storied career and months of speculation on his future. The 39-year-old made this announcement via an Instagram post on Saturday. “Thanks a lot for ur love and support throughout from 1929 hrs consider me as Retired,” the caption of the post read, which also contained a slideshow of images from his dazzling decade-and-a-half spell with the Indian cricket team, which he championed in several roles — as India’s most illustrious captain, distinguished wicketkeeper and also as one of the most destructive batsmen the world has ever seen.

The career, then, began and ended with a run out. On December 23, 2004, a 23-year-old boy with a bleached mane was run out first ball during his debut match in Chattogram against hosts Bangladesh, ostensibly desperate to score his first international run. And on July 9, 2019 — a day after he turned 38 — Dhoni fell short of the crease in Manchester while attempting to take a second run against New Zealand in the semifinal of the World Cup. His score of 50 was unable to take India over the line, and as he walked back to the pavilion — disappointment stretched over his grizzled face — the whispers about his impending retirement had turned into a raging national debate.

In between that shaky start and end, Dhoni’s storyline had the mythical narrative of a Bollywood movie (and indeed, a movie had been made on his life). He had a cricket-crazy nation starved of consistent success eating out of his hands, first with the bat, then with his gloves and most definitively, with his leadership. He also transcended the game, becoming a cultural icon, an emblem of small-town India — he came from Ranchi — making it to the top of the world.

A blazing 148 in Visakhapatnam against Pakistan in just his fifth ODI made him the country’s first-choice wicketkeeper. That hundred was scored while batting at No 3, just as his second ton (his highest ODI score of 183) scored a year later was. But very soon, Dhoni would establish himself as a middle-order batsman of such repute that he would be recognised as the greatest finisher, so much so that India was never beyond posting a grand total or chasing down an impossible target until he had had his say.